Can a Child Be Forced to Testify in Illinois Court? Attorneys Christopher Combs and Joshua Boardman from Combs Waterkotte discuss everything you need to know about Illinois sex crime charges, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and more.
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Interview Transcript
Scott Michael Dunn: Can a child be forced to testify in a sex case in Illinois?
Joshua Boardman: They can. Now, it’s going to be based on a determination, and often the judge is the one that makes that determination of whether that cross-examination or that direct examination can occur without too much trauma suffered by the, I hesitate to say child, I’ll say minor, because if the judge makes a determination that a 14- or 15-year-old can credibly testify and be cross-examined, then you have a constitutional right to confront all the witnesses against you. That constitutional right does not disappear. However, courts and legislators have created tighter scopes of how that information is accessed. So, for example, you’ll hear camera interviews and that’s basically where the judge will then go conduct an interview with a minor basically that’s outside of any sort of outside influences.
Christopher Combs: I was recently talking with my law partner, Steve Waterkotte, and he was like, I always get the question, what’s the hardest part of my job? He’s like, I always forget how to answer that. He goes, but yesterday I just remembered what the hardest part of this job is without having to think twice. And he said cross-examining and/or taking the deposition, which again you can’t take a pretrial deposition in Illinois, but in Missouri you can sit down and take the sworn statement of a minor. He said that is by far the toughest part of being a defense lawyer, challenging the veracity and cross-examining a minor. It’s really tough.
Dunn: That’s got to be terrible.
Combs: It is. It’s not—
Dunn: As a parent, especially.
Combs: Oh, it’s horrible for everyone.
