366 Pa. Super. 361 - Commonwealth v. Ludwig’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2012 · most notably Maryland v. Craig (1990), 378 Pa. Super. 353 - Commonwealth v. Groff (1988)
33 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Davis v. Alaska · Ohio v. Roberts · California v. Green · Snyder v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Dutton v. Evans
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The decided cases teach that the right of confrontation occasionally may be required to give way to considerations of public policy and the necessities of a case. A limitation can be placed on the right of confrontation, however, only where it is necessary because of a compelling interest; and any infringement must be as minimally intrusive as possible. The use of closed circuit television in child abuse cases, where the child is unable or reluctant to testify against an adult member of the family, is a minimally intrusive infringement on the right of confrontation. Considerations of public policy require that testimony from the alleged victim of abuse be received without further psychological injury to the child. So long as the right of cross-examination is preserved in such cases and all interested persons can observe the alleged victim as he or she testifies, the use of closed circuit television is not prohibit ed by the confrontation clause of the federal or state constitution.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he right to confront does not confer upon an accused the right to intimidate. The reliability of an abused child’s testimony does not depend upon his or her ability to withstand the psychological trauma of testifying in a courtroom____ The reliability of the child’s testimony can be assured in such cases by requiring the child to submit to cross-examination while the jury and the accused observe the demeanor of the witness as he or she responds to questions. In the case sub judice, this was accomplished by closed circuit television.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“There is no constitutional right to eyeball to eyeball confrontation. The choice of the words “face to face” may have resulted from an inability to foresee technological developments permitting cross-examination and confrontation without physical presence. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, live testimony was the only way that a jury could observe the demeanor of a witness. The use of video tapes does not represent a significant departure from that tradition because the goal of providing a view of the witness’s demeanor to the jury is still achieved. The intervention of a video screen or a one-way mirror does not infringe upon the defendant’s right to confrontation. There is a difference between confrontation and intimidation. It would be unconstitutional for the government to take evidence in secret and outside of the presence of the defendant, but there is no right to eyeball to eyeball presence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.