In re Lucero L

In re Lucero L. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1227, involved a three-year-old child ''testimony'' about sexual abuse using words and gestures A three-year-old child used words and gestures to the social worker, a police officer, her foster mother, and stepsister, all of which indicated her father had touched her vaginal area and buttocks. (Id. at pp. 1249-1250.) The Supreme Court found this type of consistent communication provided sufficient indicia of reliability to constitute substantial evidence on which to find the child was a dependent child of the dependency court. (Ibid.) The California Supreme Court explained in In re Lucero L. (2000) "the admissibility and substantiality of hearsay evidence are different issues . . . . The out-of-court statements of a child who is subject to a jurisdictional hearing and who is disqualified as a witness because of the lack of capacity to distinguish between truth and falsehood at the time of testifying may not be relied on exclusively unless the court finds that 'the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient indicia of reliability.'"