Assume you are the judge in a criminal trial. A five-year-old child is called to the stand. Discuss

Interviewing the child will be the first thing. That should is to happen not in the open court but rather in the closed door. That can also can happen in the judge chambers so as to interview the child in private in order to get more information and determine if the child is competent or not.

Determining if the child is competent or not is done through conversation in the closed courtroom or judge chambers. The aim of the conversation is to find out if the child still remembers the events or what transpired accurately. That is possible by asking the child to repeat what he/she had narrated and determine the consistency of the information.

The child interviewed to see if he/she is able to communicate well. Communicating is important and that shall be my priority. Apart from communicating, will test the child ability and see if he/she understand the difference between truth and lies since what is required is the truth only.

Testing whether the child understands the importance of testifying and what is it all about. From that level. I shall be in a position to determine if the child is competent to testify or not by the information gathered through conversation and interviews.

Reference

Talwar, V., & Crossman, A. M. (2012). Children's lies and their detection: Implications for child witness testimony. Developmental Review, 32(4), 337-359.

Under the Federal Victim's Protection and Rights Act, a child is "presumed competent" but the court has the power to hold a hearing to determine whether the child is competent. "Age alone" is not a compelling reason to conduct such a hearing. The Act further provides that it does not abrogate Rule 601. While the Act does not abrogate the rule, it gives the court at least the theoretical power to rule incompetent a class of witnesses not covered by Rule 601. Rule 601 sets forth two classes of incompetent witnesses: the court and the jury. The most basic principle of rule construction points to the conclusion that there are therefore no other grounds of incompetency.

I would let myself, as the judge, the prosecution, and the defense ask questions of child witness to determine if he/she was capable of remembering basic facts and able to distinguish between telling the truth and telling a lie. I would ask questions such as: 1) What is your age? 2) What is your date of birth? 3) What school do you go to or attend? 4) What are the names of your teachers?  I would also ask if he/she knows what it means to tell the truth and keep or make a promise to God to tell the truth. Once this was established I would ask questions pertaining to the trial and then ask that the prosecution and defense ask similar questions.

Once this was through I would ensure the following:

Respondent's rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment were not violated by his/her exclusion from the competency hearing.

The Confrontation Clause's functional purpose is to promote reliability in criminal trials by ensuring a defendant an opportunity for cross-examination

Rather than attempting to determine whether a competency hearing is a "stage of trial,” as opposed to a pretrial proceeding, subject to the Confrontation Clause's requirements, the more useful inquiry is whether excluding the defendant from the hearing interferes with his/her opportunity for cross-examination.

Respondent's rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were not violated by his/her exclusion from the competency hearing.