In response to the outrageous miscarriage of justice in the Kelly Michaels
case, the New Jersey Supreme Court established a procedure to prevent
similar tragedies from occurring. The court ruled that in cases of alleged
sexual abuse of children, defendants can request a pretrial taint hearing.
Taint hearings review the evidence against a defendant, specifically exam-
ining it to determine whether it is defective as a result of the kinds of in-
terviews we discussed in Chapter 4. Courts in other states have also
adopted this procedure to protect the legitimate rights of defendants
charged with sexually abusing children.

The State of Ohio, for example, has defined criteria for determining
whether to allow the out-of-court statements of a child into evidence at a
criminal trial. This is a particularly important issue, because in cases of al-
leged sexual abuse prosecutors frequently attempt to bolster their case by
relying on the testimony of a professional who interviewed the child. In
some criminal trials, the child never testifies in court. The professional
who interviewed the child testifies instead. Given the exceedingly biased
interviews we reviewed in Chapter 4, the potential for this kind of second-
hand testimony to convict innocent people looms ominously over any
trial in which it is allowed.

In determining whether to allow a child's out-of-court statements
into a trial, the Ohio Supreme Court specified the issues a trial judge must

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