State v. C.J.

(dissenting) — Inexplicably, the trial court found B.K. incompetent to testify at trial because he could not understand the difference between truth and falsity while, at the same time, the court admitted as “reliable” earlier hearsay statements made by the same child when he was even younger. These hearsay declarations from an incompetent witness were used to convict a 13-year-old girl of first degree child molestation. The Court of Appeals saw something wrong with this picture, and so do I.

That court concluded the trial court should not have admitted the hearsay statements without first…