Can children be placed, and required to testify, under oath in American courts? In one scene of the film i am sam the character Lucy, seven years old, is questioned in some kind of court under oath. When her story is "shaky", she is reminded that she is under oath and not allowed to lie. Is this authentic? Could it actually happen in American courts?
The Testimony Of Children Under Oath Do Children As Young As Seven Years Old Testify In U.S. Courts? Could it actually happen in American courts? Yes. It can and does happen on a regular basis, although a seven year old is at the very lower end of the range at which children are called to testify as witnesses with any regularity. Any witness which a court determines is competent to testify, which includes many, but not all, minors, testifies under oath. Some jurisdictions have a hard and fast minimum age at which someone can be competent to testify (often age seven is the minimum), while other states make it a rule of reason for the court to evaluate on a case by case basis. Child testimony can be used in any kind of case, not just sex offenses against children or child abuse and neglect cases, although those cases are the kind of cases where child testimony is most common. Special Arrangements Sometimes Made For Child Testimony While special arrangements for the form and circumstances of that testimony can sometimes be ordered by a court (sometimes raising constitutional issues regarding whether the &quot;confrontation clause&quot; right of a criminal defendant is violated in a criminal case under U.S. Constitutional law), the default rule is that a minor testifies in the same manner as anyone else. Often the exact wording of the oath is changed when a child can't reasonable be expected to understand the normal wording. Perjury In Cases Of Child Testimony Under Oath If the person testifying under oath is a minor, a perjury offense would be presumptively tried in juvenile court rather than an adult criminal court. Also, it is possible that even if a child is sworn and testifying under oath, that a child will not be old enough to prosecute for the crime of perjury, even in juvenile court, if the child intentionally commits perjury. An oath has symbolic value and is believed by many people to have an effect, even when there is no credible threat of a perjury prosecution for lying under oath. In practice, perjury prosecutions, even for adults, for court testimony, are vanishingly rare even in pretty clear cases, even though the crime is committed basically every day that courts are open for business. For example, there are dozens of such prosecutions a year in Colorado including both in court and out of court sworn statements, and there are tens of thousands of evidentiary hearings and evidentiary trials each year in Colorado, or which perjury is actually committed in perhaps 5%-10% of such hearings and trials. Alternatives To Child Testimony Under Oath Evidence Of Unsworn Out Of Court Statements Made By Children It is also possible for things that a minor says to be recounted by someone who heard them said or a transcript of a conversation with someone that was not under oath (in which case it is hearsay, but may come within an exception to the hearsay rule), or via a videotape of a child saying something (which is a record to be authenticated prior to its admission). But, in both of those cases, what the child says that the court considers as evidence is not testimony. Interviews In Chambers Of Children Another process by which courts obtain information from children, often in child custody cases, is for the judge to personally interview the children, not under oath and not with testimony taken down by a court reporter, either in or outside the presence of counsel for the parties (and almost always not in the presence of parents or any audience present at a hearing) in the judges chambers. This is primarily done not to elicit evidence of facts, per se, so much as to discern the preferences, desires and concerns of the children themselves as expressed directly. Statements of preferences, desires and opinions of children, because they are not statements of fact and are instead statements of opinion, are by definition not capable of being prosecuted for perjury, since their truth or falsity is not objectively determinable. These interviews are given more weight in the case of older children than in the case of younger children and this process would not be used at all for infants or pre-schoolers.
Insofar as those treaties don't bind the US, the notion of "violating" such laws is moot. Hoda Muthana is, under Yemeni law, a Yemeni citizen (it is immaterial whether she has ever "accepted" or exploited it), and as such stripping her of US citizenship would not leave her stateless. In the case of Hoda Muthana, the action is based on the legal argument that she was not ever a citizen, based on the premise that her father was a foreign diplomat. Under US law, children born to foreign diplomats in the US are not birthright citizens, following US v. Wong Kim Ark. Birthright citizenship cannot be revoked. However, a person can renounce their citizenship, via certain acts, including taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state or a political subdivision thereof, after having attained the age of eighteen years;or (3) entering, or serving in, the armed forces of a foreign state if (A) such armed forces are engaged in hostilities against the United States, or (B) such persons serve as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer The defense argument would presumably be that ISIS is not a foreign state (despite their own claims to the contrary) so her affiliation with ISIS does not qualify. There are grounds for denaturalization, including falsifying or concealing relevant facts pertaining to naturalization, refusing to testify before Congress, or joining a subversive organization including Al Qaeda within 5 years of naturalization.
No. Indonesia Law uses Civil Law structures which use an Inquisitorial Trial. The chief difference is that in the United States (which has a Common Law Structure) the judge usually does not decide the case, but interprets the law (Trier of Law) and with a few exceptions, will determine the sentence once guilt is found. The Jury decides the case (Trier of Fact) and pronounces guilt (It is the right of the defense to request a Bench Trial, which gives the Judge both roles. The prosecution cannot object to this request). In a Civil Court, the big difference is that their is no Jury and the Judge has both roles (Trier of Law, and Trier of Fact). As the name suggests, rather than two sides fighting each other (adversarial), the two sides are answering questions posed to them by the Judge or usually a panel of Judges are used and the Judge may initiate further investigation in the evidence. The United States does use Inquisitional Trials from time to time, but they are often seen in misdemeanors, traffic courts, and small claims courts. The latter is a popular daytime TV genre (think Judge Judy) while misdemeanors and traffic court decisions are often time funny and make great Youtube videos. There are not many great Adversarial media as many throw out rules for time sake (real U.S. trials have many long boring periods during testimony) and story/drama sake. I would recommend "My Cousin Vinny" which was written by two lawyers who were fed up with Hollywood messing up how court room drama works and is hilarious to boot. When viewing either, take them with a grain of salt.
First off: if someone in DHS is telling you this, your first, best, and really only option is to get advice from an attorney specializing in family law. Regardless of what we tell you here, without representation you will have a hard time with officials who believe otherwise. That said: I don't find anything exactly matching what you describe. The Uniform Adoption Code (AR Code § 9-9-200 (2014)) does not specifically address sibling groups at all. Adoptive parents do have rights to streamlined adoption of a sibling of a child they already adopted, under the Streamlined Adoption act (AR Code § 9-9-701 (2014)). In the section related to Placement of Minors (AR Code § 9-28-108 (2014)), however, is likely what the case worker was describing. Subsection (b) (2) reads, in part: (2) When it is in the best interest of each of the juveniles, the department shall attempt to place: (A) A sibling group together while they are in foster care and adoptive placement This is discussing foster care and adoptive placement, of course. I think the key wording is When it is in the best interest of each of the juveniles; that would be your argument (that it is not in their best interest). I see a 2011 case, for example, discussing a sibling group of four children not entirely different from yours; while there are not children with special needs, there is a child with major behavioral issues, and one of the (three) foster parents is considering adopting one of the children and "would be open" to considering others, but clearly isn't expecting to be required to do so. Note: I am not a lawyer, and particularly not one specialized in family law This is based on my reading of the 2014 Arkansas code. That is almost 2 years old. That said, I don't see any news articles or similar discussing limitations in sibling group placement in Arkansas recently, which is the sort of thing that usually would get attention. That said, this has also been something that HHS has been trying to encourage states to push for &ndash; more sibling group placement and awareness of sibling group issues &ndash; so it's entirely possible something could have changed.
In 2017 Illinois changed its law so that criminal charges for child abuse have no statute of limitations, and can be prosecuted as long as the accused is alive. This applies to all such crimes that occur after the new law was passed, and to all prior crimes on which the previous statute of limitations had not yet expired. See this news story on the change Previously, Illinois law allowed for prosecution for up to 20 years after the victim turned 18. Since the women Kelly is accused of having abused were 16 or younger in 1998 or later, the older statute of limitations would not have expired until at least 2020. More than 35 states now have no statute of limitations for child abuse. By the way, for civil actions, as opposed to criminal charges, the Illinois law now says: an action for damages for personal injury based on childhood sexual abuse must be commenced within 10 years of the date [a person turns 18] or within 5 years of the date the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover both (i) that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred and (ii) that the injury was caused by the childhood sexual abuse. The fact that the person abused discovers or through the use of reasonable diligence should discover that the act of childhood sexual abuse occurred is not, by itself, sufficient to start the discovery period under this subsection (b). Knowledge of the abuse does not constitute discovery of the injury or the causal relationship between any later-discovered injury and the abuse." (ILCS § 5/13-202.2(b)) Thus, a civil suit by one of the alleged victims might or might not be barred by time, depending on details of the date of the abuse and the victim's age. In short, do not take a drama as a source of legal advice. Look it up or ask a reliable source.
The California jury instructions for the crime of perjury give more detail on what it means to commit perjury: it's not just that you make a statement that is false, you have to willfully state that the information is true even though you know it is false. If you have a belief that you will be convicted for perjury (or any crime) by testifying, you may invoke your 5th Amendment right (I assume you are not testifying as the defendant in a criminal matter). You might (theoretically: see below on immunity and perjury) be granted immunity from prosecution, in which case there is no 5th Amendment right to refuse to testify (you are not putting yourself in criminal jeopardy), and the court can order you to testify. Or, you might not be granted immunity and still be ordered to testify. The federal immunity statute, 18 USC 6002, also needs to be scrutinized. When ordered to testify, "the witness may not refuse to comply with the order on the basis of his privilege against self-incrimination", but it generally cannot be used against him: no testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case However, there is an exception: except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order. In other words, you cannot be immunized against a perjury charge. In Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 defendant refused an order to testify, on the grounds that they (allegedly) believed that the government's grant of immunity was not broad enough, i.e. that there were areas where they might be questions and forced to criminally implicate themselves. They refused, and were held in contempt. The opinion recognized that the 5th Amendment "protects against any disclosures that the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used" (emphasis added). In Mason v. United States, 244 U.S. 362, the court held that The Fifth Amendment does not relieve a witness from answering merely on his own declaration or judgment that an answer might incriminate him; whether he must answer is determinable by the trial court in the exercise of its sound discretion, and unless there is reasonable ground, as distinct from a remote or speculative possibility, to apprehend that a direct answer may prove dangerous to the witness, his answer should be compelled. Heike v. United States, 227 U.S. 131 asserts that "the constitutional protection is confined to real danger, and does not extend to remote possibilities out of the ordinary course of law, citing Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591 (itself quoting Lord Chief Justice Cockburn): "the danger to be apprehended must be real and appreciable, with reference to the ordinary operation of law in the ordinary course of things; not a danger of an imaginary and unsubstantial character, having reference to some extraordinary and barely possible contingency, so improbable that no reasonable man would suffer it to influence his conduct" Although the wording of the immunity statute does not allow immunity from prosecution for perjury, the 5th Amendment right can only be invoked against a real legal jeopardy. They can be compelled to testify, they probably cannot be immunized against a perjury conviction (certainly not at the federal level). We would need to know the entire circumstances of the case to be able to assess whether the "knowing to be false" part could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
It depends. If the tip is that there are pictures proving that a minor consumed alcohol 10 years ago, probably not. If the tip is that there's a kidnapped child being tortured inside, more likely. In either event, they would probably seek to build up some independently obtained evidence to enable them to obtain a warrant based on probable cause. An anonymous tip might be enough, depending on how detailed it was and whether there were any objective indicators of reliability, but it's not a sure thing.
Assuming that the age of criminal responsibility in your jurisdiction is more than five (I don't know any jurisdictions where it isn't), then you can't be arrested for this. It is possible that the therapist will have to report the information, and it will appear on your record if you apply to work with vulnerable people. On the other hand, if your parents put you up for adoption aged five (but kept a sister), they will have had to explain why - and that is likely to have been recorded (unless this is so long ago that record keeping was much more lax in those days). I would recommend finding a different therapist that is more comfortable being told about these things. You might also need to consult a lawyer for a short while (they will often offer a 30 minute free consultation).