Superior Court Associate Judge Teresa Kim-Tenorio has denied a sex offender\u2019s motion to prevent a child from testifying in a case that accuses him of sexually abusing her in 2018.<\/p>\n
Benjamin M. Hattori, 42, had sought to block the testimony of the victim in the alleged sexual abuse of a minor case that took place in November 2018 but Kim-Tenorio denied Hattori\u2019s motion, saying it failed to meet the burden of showing evidence that the child\u2019s statements were the product of suggestive or coercive interview techniques.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court finds that [Hattori] has failed to identify any specific example of unduly suggestive or improper interview techniques in the government\u2019s interviews. Furthermore, at 14, the child witness\u2019 age weighs heavily against [Hattori\u2019s] motion,\u201d the order stated. <\/p>\n
Although a child\u2019s memory is peculiarly susceptible to suggestibility, Kim-Tenorio said that that concern becomes less relevant as the witness\u2019 age increases. <\/p>\n
Hattori, through assistant public defender Stephanie Boutsicaris, argued that the 14-year-old girl\u2019s testimony should be excluded as irrelevant and unreliable because of the child\u2019s age and the alleged suggestive and coercive interview techniques that were used to obtain her statements. <\/p>\n
\u201cA.P.\u2019s story evolved over the course of three interviews with government officials, none of which were recorded or otherwise adequately documented. The government officials who conducted the interviews were either inexperienced or lacked qualifications in the area of child interview techniques. Both the lack of documentation and lack of qualified experts in the area of child interview techniques demonstrate that the interviews with A.P. were unduly suggestive,\u201d Boutsicaris argued. <\/p>\n
Boutsicaris added that having the child\u2019s family members present during the interviews, conducting the interviews in a non-neutral location, using a questioner who is an authority figure, and repetitively interviewing the child when she was tired are all suggestive interview techniques that had an undue influence on the child\u2019s testimony. <\/p>\n
Assistant attorney general Samantha Vickery denied this in the Commonwealth\u2019s opposition to Hattori\u2019s motion. In addition, the Commonwealth argues that the child is competent to testify because a child\u2019s competency is not even in question if the child is above the age of 14 when testifying. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe government\u2019s interviews with A.P. were either memorialized in a report, or transcribed and the defendant has already received copies. A.P.\u2019s testimonies were consistent throughout interviews, and the defendant has not indicated any improper or suggestive interview techniques and has failed to identify any specific questions asked as being unduly suggestive or improper,\u201d Vickery argued. <\/p>\n
Kim-Tenorio also denied Hattori\u2019s motion dismiss count II violation of sex offender registry and motion to compel discovery of witness statements to the victim\u2019s advocate, but granted Hattori\u2019s motion to compel discovery of offender records. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Associate Judge Teresa Kim-Tenorio has denied a sex offender\u2019s motion to prevent a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}