I watch a lot of true crime shows and there appears to be a lot of cases where victims decide not to follow through with testifying against their attackers, merely because of their fear of being in the room with them. This seems to be particularly common in cases of sexual assault. Can’t they just not have the accused attacker not appear in court when the victim testifies?
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It is stated in the sixth amendment to the US Constitution that a defendant has the right to face their accuser in court.
Because laws should be consistent in all cases, they can’t just make assumptions before the trial is even done. What if the attacker was being wrongly accused? How are they supposed to respond if they can’t even so much as listen to the accusations against them? If the law gave blanket permission to remove the accused from the room while people testified against them, it would be far too easy to sway results against them. Innocent until proven guilty.
That unfortunately would violate the 6th amendment of the US constitution:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; **to be confronted with the witnesses against him;** to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
You have the right to face your accuser in court
The following applies only to the United States:
In the U.S., people accused of *any* crimes, not just violent ones, have rights too, and one of those rights is the right to face anyone who testifies against you in court and to challenge their testimony. It’s in the Constitution. Allowing a witness to testify without being in court, or not allowing the defendant to be in court when the witness testifies violates this fundamental Constitutional right that belongs to the defendant. There are some limited circumstances where this does not apply, but the general rule is that a witness must testify in court in front of the defendant.
They don’t, technically, but i imagine it really really really helps the prosecution’s case
As horrible as it is sometimes peopel lie about being victims. That is why we have trials. To determine who is telling the truth. In a trial the accused has the right to defend themselves aginst the peopel who say they broke the law. It’s not a perfect system but it’s about as good as it can be.
Who’s to say they’re a victim? Who’s to say they’re a victim and that the person they’re accusing is their attacker? Thats the whole point of a trial.
You can’t really say “it’s fucked up that person has to testify in front of their rapist” as if you know for a fact that the accused raped them or that they were even raped at all.
Also the 6th amendment ofc. You have a right to face your accuser.
The accused have the right to know the charges and evidence against them, and to have the accusations against them laid out as part of the trial.
In reality a victim will sometimes be spoken for without being present, but that would still involve sworn testimony and the accuser having to answer any questions posed by the defense. This is not common but it can happen, why a TV show would ignore that I don’t know.
From a practical standpoint, if the victim of that violent crime is the only one saying that it happened, then how is anyone supposed to know it happened if they don’t testify?
To reframe it, let’s say I want to be a jerk to you and tell everyone you punched me in the head. Then court happens, the court just reads my statement about punching you, you never see me (and maybe never even met me) then the jury renders a verdict on the case. It would be a pretty unfair justice system if you never got to even see the person who was accusing you.
There is both the way the system, most notably of course US one, works (and defendent does need to be there for even just general fair trial) and when it comes to using eyewitnesses the actual victim is only one that truly matters and be worthwhile evidence without like camera footage and is sadly under certain crimes, rape, basically required to be done to have a chance of justice even if physical evidence is strong enough on its own to be only “witness” needed in criminal case that shouldn’t require a civilian accuser because a crime obviously occured.
So one part sometimes actually neccessary for fair trial or evidence and one part criminal system requiring reliving trauma in front of people to convict clearly guilty person.
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