Children/juveniles and the Reliability ot"Their Courtroom Testimony 149Literature ReviewAs reflected in the case illustration, having a child present testimony in court is not
a simple, straightforward matter. There are many factors that need to be considered.
Because prosecutors rely so much on children's testimony, especially in abuse cases,
it is important to determine if children are competent to testify (Saywitz, 1995),
it used to be common practice to have children below a certain age deemed au-
tomatically incompetent. Yet, a 1770 case, Rex v. Brasicr, held that there should
be nothing automatic in determining competency, no matter how young the
child (J. E. B. Myers, 1993b). Wheeler v. U.S. (1895) stated that no age marker
should determine competency to testify. However, there are a few states that still
use this approach. The approach used in most states today is that everyone is com-
petent, which comes from the Federal Rules of Evidence—Rule 601. Some states
also guarantee competence in sexual abuse cases (J. E. B. Myers, 1993b).
Whatever the state's approach, judges are ultimately responsible for determin-
ing children's competence, and they have broad discretionary powers. According
to J. E. B. Myers (1993b), there are three main requirements that judges use to
determine competency. The first is whether children have certain capabilities. For
example, they must be able to observe what occurs in the courtroom, not necessar-
ily completely comprehend what happens. They must possess adequate memory.
Finish and Shukat (1995) reported that even young children, ages 3 to 6, are cap-
able of providing detailed descriptions of past events after long periods of time.
J. E. B. Myers (1993b) described further capabilities that children must possess in
order to be deemed competent to testify. Children must be able to communicate.
They also must be able to tell the truth from a lie and understand the importance
of telling the truth. In other words, they must understand the consequences of
lying. K. Bussey, Lee, and Grimbeck (1993) indicated that even 4-year-olds have
the capacity to distinguish a lie from the truth and that they are able to knowingly
lie or tell the truth. The second requirement described byj. E. B. Myers (1993b) is
whether children have personal knowledge about facts pertinent to the case. This
comes from Rule 602 of the Federal Rules ot Evidence. The final requirement is
taking the oath. A. G. Walker (1993) stated that children can be found incompe-
tent if they do not understand the meaning of the wording of the oath. However,
some states allow children to forego this element and still testify (J. E. B. Myers,
1993b). In Martha's situation, the judge will have to determine if she possesses the
capabilities described above and whether she understands the meaning of an oath.
If the prosecutor wants to proceed with Martha's case and use her as the sole
witness, she/he must decide whether her testimony is reliable so that the jury