Ortiz-Self bill on children’s remote testimony to get Wednesday hearing in legislature

Published 10:22 am Tuesday, February 10, 2015

A bill introduced by State Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self to help childhood victims of crime will get a hearing in the legislature Wednesday.

The bill is aimed at increasing awareness of an existing law that allows children who are crime victims to testify remotely.

Democratic 21st District Rep. Ortiz-Self noted that research has found that when children are called to testify in court proceedings, the trauma resulting from exposure to an open courtroom, or confrontation with a defendant, can lead to emotional distress and inaccurate testimony.

“As a mental health counselor, I have sat with children as they are forced to testify in front of their offenders”, Ortiz-Self said when she introduced the bill Feb. 3. “We owe it to our children to help them heal from such horrific crimes as soon as possible; this includes helping to restore a sense of safety.”

Washington and many other states have laws to allow child victims to testify by alternative methods.

A 25-year-old Washington law allows a court to order that a child under the 14 testify in a separate room, while one-way closed-circuit television equipment simultaneously projects the child’s testimony into the courtroom.

However, Ortiz-Self said, a recent survey of courts showed none using remote testimony for children victims of sexual crimes in the last 10 years.

Ortiz-Self’s House Bill 1898 would require notifying child victims of their right to request remote testimony and require the Criminal Training Commission to include, in its annual training, the right of child victims to request remote testimony.

“Our children do not deserve to be re-victimized by the system that is supposed to protect them,” Ortiz-Self said.

Evan Smith can be reached at schsmith@frontier.com.