"The new witness-stand role for dogs in a handful of states began in 2003, when the prosecution won permission for a dog named Jeeter with a beige button nose to help in a sexual assault case in Seattle. 'Sometimes the dog means the difference between a conviction and an acquittal,' said Ellen O’Neill-Stephens, a Seattle prosecutor who has become a campaigner for the dog-in-court cause."Ellen O’Neill-Stephens is a co-founder of the organization.
Ellen O'Neill-Stephens, a prosecutor in Seattle who founded the organization Courthouse Dogs, has championed dogs helping witnesses. She said they are "an incredible tool" for helping calm victims "reliving the trauma as they're describing what happened to them."posted by ericb at 2:29 PM on August 8, 2011 [1 favorite]
Their use gained traction after a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a defendant's right to confront an accuser threw into doubt the legality of allowing victims to testify remotely by two-way video or other means to avoid the stressful environment of the courtroom.
"Now you had kids right up there in the face of the person who did this to them," O'Neill-Stephens said.
"We had an occasion in our courthouse where a child just froze," she said, describing a witness scared by the presence of a defendant's relatives. "All it took was playing with the dog to tell the judge he was afraid of them."
The relatives were ordered out of court.
O'Neill-Stephens lists 18 jurisdictions in Washington, Idaho, California, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and New Mexico with courthouse dog programs.
... To date, there has been no case law from an appeals court on the practice, O'Neill-Stephens said, but "some defense attorneys successfully object to the presence of the dog and the judge doesn't want to go out on a limb."
She said defense lawyers in her jurisdiction have generally stopped objecting. Some even use the dogs to advantage, petting them as they cross-examine a witness, perhaps softening jurors' views of them as interrogators.
"The dogs are for everybody in the criminal justice system," O'Neill-Stephens said.*
After holding a hearing in People v. Tohom, 338/2010, Dutchess County Court Judge Stephen Greller had concluded on June 1 that the child victim would suffer "serious emotional and psychological distress" if called on to testify without Rose's support but that an appropriate instruction to the jury would minimize any prejudice to the defendant. He said that her case fell within the parameters of Executive Law §642-a, which requires trial judges to be sensitive to the stress child witnesses experience. He analogized this holding to that in People v. Gutkaiss, 206 A.D. 2d 628 (3rd Dept. 1994), a sodomy case in which the court ruled it "was entirely appropriate" to allow a child to testify while holding a teddy bear. While unprecedented in New York, advocates list 18 jurisdictions in Washington, Idaho, California, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and New Mexico with courthouse dog programs. There is a website that promotes their use www.courthousedogs.com. Rose's regular job is helping provide therapy in schools for troubled children.posted by ericb at 2:36 PM on August 8, 2011 [3 favorites]
lesbiassparrow: I'm not sure about NY, but in many regions and countries the conviction rate for rape is horrifically low due to jury attitudes towards defendants; it strikes me that if the dog swings things this might go some way to redressing that balance.This is a disturbing approach: you believe the conviction rates are too low ("horrifically"), so convicting more people- whether they are innocent or guilty- justifies using cute puppies on the witness stand. So long as we get those numbers up, eh?
DarlingBri: I would like people who think the dog is unfair to consider the relative fairness of asking a child witness of 5, 11 or 15 to be articulate, poised and calm enough to effectively testify in a legal proceeding run by, for, and dominated by adults, including adults who will cross-examine them. This dog is explicitly allowed for child witnesses.That is also an interesting perspective. I'm not sure why you think anyone expects a child witness of 5, 11, or 15 to be "articulate, poised and calm" since the jury can pretty well understand that a 5-year-old is going to talk about things differently than an adult witness and weigh that accordingly.
The fairness deck is stacked against these witnesses. The dog doesn't even come close to levelling the playing field.
"During a little more than an hour on the stand, Rose was mostly invisible Monday. When the girl was asked to point out the man who is charged with raping her for four years starting at the age of 10, the dog poked her muzzle up and the girl stroked it. When she was asked to go into graphic detail about the rapes, she looked down and patted the dog.posted by ericb at 3:08 PM on August 8, 2011 [10 favorites]
... Before the girl and jurors were brought in, a handler led Rose to the witness box, where she was placed mostly out of view under the supervision of the judge. When jurors returned, Greller introduced the witness and told the panel she was with a companion animal, but that they shouldn't draw any conclusion from that or allow sympathy to sway them.
The girl gave mostly short answers, steadily reaching down with one hand on the lead and one hand on Rose. The jury of seven women and five men gave no indication they even noticed the dog.
The girl, dressed in a dark top and pants, her dark hair in braids, pursed or bit her lips as she responded to questions, nervously draining a small white cup of water while cross-examination began. At one point, under questioning from the defense lawyer, she took a deep breath, looked down and appeared to whisper to Rose."*
muddgirl: My apologies, the second wikipedia link is very, very terrible. It appears that some indeterminate number of people were initially found guilty, but were later acquited or plead down? Not exactly an unusual outcome nowadaysYou are being extraordinarily, extraordinarily dismissive of that case.
FINDINGS OF FACT -- Lori Stella, a New York State licensed Clinical Social Worker, having an LMSW degree, has been the victim’ s therapist since August of 2010. The victim, now 15 years old, has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She exhibits multiple symptoms, including sleeplessness, numbness, failure to connect, inattention and constant feelings of emotional distress regarding her trauma resulting from the alleged sexual abuse by the defendant.posted by ericb at 5:00 PM on August 8, 2011 [6 favorites]
To date, the victim cannot talk about the events with the therapist. When they attempt to do so, she “shuts down”, which is consistent with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
She has trouble sleeping at night. On some occasions, she indicates that she feels safe, but the therapy engaged in by the child led the therapist to a different conclusion. The victim cannot articulate much more than “what happened with . . . . . " She provides no details. When questioned, she indicates that she does not want to talk about “it”. She has extreme difficulty in verbalizing. When she becomes upset, her anxiety becomes obvious and visible. She picks at her sleeves; she cannot make eye contact and cannot verbalize.
The victim has limited contact with her family and her only support system is her paternal grandparents who reside outside of the United States. The victim is familiar with “Rose”, an 11-year-old golden retriever companion animal.
The dog has been trained to work with victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, traumatized and special needs children, veterans at VA hospitals and other victims.
The dog has been trained to sense their anxiety and attempt to reduce their stress or anxiety level by either nuzzling them or wanting to be pet.
The victim has worked with “Rose” in a therapeutic setting and the interaction between them has been very positive. The victim becomes significantly more verbal about her activities when she is with the dog and has expressed great anxiety about facing the defendant, who she fears, in open court without the assistance of the dog. The therapist has indicated that it is her opinion to a reasonable degree of certainty that the child’ s courtroom alleging sexual acts committed by the perpetrator, a relative with whom the victim had a long standing relationship, is likely to cause the child to suffer very severe emotional and mental stress. She will be re—traumatized and suffer increased Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, including greater symptomology, without assistance in testifying when she must testify in the presence of the alleged perpetrator.
The victim has indicated that she feels a sense of calm with the dog and will feel safer at the trial. In the opinion of the therapist, the dog will help the victim verbalize and will permit her to better express herself. It was further opined that the dog would decrease the child’ s level of psychological distress and harm. It is unknown whether the child can testify without the dog. Certainly, she is better able to testify with the dog present and her art therapy clearly demonstrates her fear of the perpetrator.
Avoid using the term “therapy dog” because the use of this term may create grounds for a mistrial or raise an issue on appeal. This term originated in the medical and psychiatric fields and connotes that the recipient of the dog’s attention is in need of physical or psychiatric therapy. A defense attorney could argue that the use of the term “therapy dog” by the judge or the prosecutor implies to the jury that the witness is in fact a victim in need of therapy and could be construed as a comment on the evidence. It is up to the jury to decide if the witness was victimized by the defendant. You don’t want to retry a case and put the witness/victim through this ordeal a second time."The FAQs don't really address my question* at all, and since this was posted as a reply to my question I wanted to clarify that.
Yeah, I was (pleasantly) surprised, because when this thread started I also expected mine to be the minority opinion. It's nice to see that people can debate the merits and balance of justice, and whether we should allow for this sort of thing as a general rule, while mostly avoiding the sandtrap of what this particular case was about.It really is fascinating how rape cases bring out the hawks in liberal people.Ralston McTodd: About 60 percent of the posts in this thread express concern that this defendant did not receive a fair trial. I have never seen a reaction approaching this in threads here about the trials of people accused of hate crimes, police officers accused of brutality, or bankers accused of embezzlement. Fascinating indeed
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:30 PM on August 8, 2011