Kentucky v. Stincer (482 U.S. 730)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 19, 1987 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 482 U.S. 730 · 107 S. Ct. 2658
- Decided
- June 19, 1987
- Term
- October Term 1986
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Blackmun
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented in this case is whether the exclusion of a defendant from a hearing held to determine the competency of two child witnesses to testify violates the defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. I Respondent Sergio Stincer was indicted in the Circuit Court of Christian County, Ky., and charged with committing first-degree sodomy with T. G., an 8-year-old girl, N. G., a 7-year-old girl, and B. H., a 5-year-old boy, in violation of Ky. Rev. Stat. §510.070 (1985). After a jury was sworn, but before the presentation of evidence, the court conducted an in-chambers hearing to determine if the two young girls were competent to testify. Over his objection, respondent, but not his counsel (a public defender), was excluded from this hearing. Tr. 15. The two children were examined separately and the judge, the prosecutor, and respondent’s counsel asked questions of each girl to determine if she were capable of remembering basic facts and of distinguishing between telling the truth and telling a lie. Id., at 15-26. T. G., the 8-year-old, was asked her age, her date of birth, the name of her school, the names of her teachers, and the name of her Sunday school. She was also asked whether she knew what it meant to tell the truth, and…
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