Kentucky v. Stincer

In Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 (1987), the United States Supreme Court held that the exclusion of a defendant from a hearing held to determine the competency of two child witnesses to testify did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Id. at 747, 107 S.Ct. at 2668, 96 L.Ed.2d at 648. The Court reasoned that excluding the defendant from the hearing did not interfere with his opportunity for effective cross-examination of the witnesses in the course of the trial. Id. at 740, 107 S.Ct. at 2664, 96 L.Ed.2d at 644. As observed by the Court, "the type of questions . . . asked at the competency hearing was easy to repeat on cross-examination at trial." Id. at 741, 107 S.Ct. at 2665, 96 L.Ed.2d at 644. The Court further noted that "questions at a competency hearing usually are limited to matters that are unrelated to the basic issues of the trial." Ibid.