Marx v. Texas
Headline: Denial of review lets a Texas decision stand allowing a child to testify by closed-circuit television, expanding exceptions to the right to confront witnesses and affecting defendants and child witnesses.
Holding: The Supreme Court declined to review the Texas appellate decision, leaving intact a ruling that allowed a child witness to testify by closed-circuit television rather than in the defendant’s presence.
- Leaves in place a ruling allowing child witnesses to testify via closed-circuit television.
- Reduces defendants’ ability to confront some witnesses in the courtroom.
- May let prosecutors avoid in-person testimony without strong showing of trauma.
Summary
Background
Jeffrey Steven Marx was charged with sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl (B.J.). A separate 6-year-old (J.M.) had witnessed the abuse and the State asked that she testify by closed-circuit television rather than in the defendant’s presence. At a hearing the child’s mother and a doctor largely said the child could testify, but the trial court granted the prosecution’s motion anyway and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court then declined to review the Texas ruling.
Reasoning
The central question raised by the dissent was whether the Court’s earlier exception allowing certain child witnesses to testify outside the defendant’s presence can be extended to a witness who was not the subject of the prosecution and when there was little or no showing that in‑court confrontation would cause serious trauma. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, argued in dissent that the lower court’s decision stretched that exception far beyond the original case and that the required showing of trauma was effectively absent here.
Real world impact
Because the Supreme Court refused to take the case, the Texas court’s ruling permitting closed‑circuit testimony remains in place. That leaves in effect a broader practice in which some child witnesses may testify without being in the defendant’s physical presence. The denial was not a ruling on the constitutional question itself, so future courts could revisit the issue.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Scalia’s dissent explains why he would have granted review: he views the case as an unjustified expansion of the exception to the right to face witnesses and warns that the exception risks swallowing the constitutional rule protecting confrontation.
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