Victim passes away before trial

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Connecticut
If a victim in a sexual assault case (4th degree misdemeanor) passes away before the trial how does or can this case proceed. (death in no way related to case)
Case is in Pre-Trial at this point. Next scheduled hearing is for the charges to be read. What effect, if any, will the death of the victim have on the case?

It will all depend on the evidence available to the prosecution and if the DA thinks there is enough to continue.

no evidence, he said/she said

The death may very well result in the case being dropped. However, that would depend on the nature of the case, evidence, and statements.

zero physical evidence
statements made to police/prosecutors/victims advocate are conflicting with some things added or removed or exaggerated depending on who she spoke with.
Defendant has supplied letters/char witnesses to his PD

A similar case happened a short time ago in New Boston, Michigan.

Statutory rape charges against an 18-year-old student had to be dismissed by prosecutors because the 14-year-old girl who had accused him of rape committed suicide.

The death of the young girl meant that the case could not proceed against the rape suspect because the 18-year-old would be unable to face his accuser. The prosecutor's case depended on the girl's testimony. There were no witnesses.

quincy said:

A similar case happened a short time ago in Ann Arbor.

The death of the young girl meant that the case could not proceed against the rape suspect because the 18 year old would be unable to face his accuser. The girl was the only witness.

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I'm not familiar with the case you are referring to but I am fairly certain that that is not the specific reason the case was dismissed. The sixth amendment right to face your accuser means that you have the right to cross examine any witness from whom testimonial evidence is used against you in court. If the State can prove their case without calling the victim in the case, and without admitting any testimonial evidence offered by the victim, then the sixth amendment right never attaches to that witness.

A defendant always has the option of calling the complainant as a witness during their presentation of their case, but the sixth amendment does not give them the right to force the State to call the victim as a witness.

When a victim in a case like sexual assault dies it can make a case almost impossible to prove. I'm sure that is why the case was dismissed, not because it was dictated by a Constitutional right.

The girl was the only witness. The charges were dismissed because the 18-year-old was unable to face his accuser.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2010/11/10/teen-at-center-of-rape-investigation-commits-suicide/

quincy said:

The girl was the only witness. The charges were dismissed because the 18-year-old was unable to face his accuser.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2010/11/10/teen-at-center-of-rape-investigation-commits-suicide/

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I think the report phrased it wrong. It would not be the first time that the media repeated something that sounded legal but was not the issue in question.

Fighting words, Carl.

The "phrase" was reported widely and was exactly what Wayne County's prosecutor said.

quincy said:

Fighting words, Carl.

The "phrase" was reported widely and was exactly what Wayne County's prosecutor said.

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That was not what was quoted in the article as it appeared to be an assumption by the author. Quoting someone is fine, but I have seen a great many media folks misinterpret and misquote the law or fail to understand its proper application. That is understandable, but it is also why one must be careful to avoid getting their legal understanding solely from the media or from television shows.

And if the prosecutor did say that, he was likely using the broadest layman's terms rather than spelling out the legal burden the state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

As CavemanLawyer mentioned, there is no right to specifically face your accuser, only that you have the right to refute evidence and cross examine witnesses. Understand that in a murder we would not have a victim. And in all criminal instances it is the STATE making the accusation at court, not the individual.

I suspect that in this instance the state's only evidence was the statement of the victim. Without her being able to take the stand there was no case and the law did not allow her previous statements to be admitted under any hearsay exception so the state was forced to drop the matter.

After looking at that there are tons of articles on that case and there are multiple statements from the prosecutor stating that the case was dismissed because of lack of evidence without the complaining witness. He doesn't have the right to have the rape victim testify, there just wasn't enough evidence to proceed in that particular case without that testimony.

Instead of Tarnopolski having a preliminary examination of the evidence against him Wednesday, the prosecution dropped the charges for lack of evidence. Miller said many people have a difficult time understanding the law in this case and why the charges were dropped. She said Kelly’s written statements are considered hearsay and not admissible in court without her testimony. Now that the girl is dead and she was the only witness and accuser, there is no evidence to prosecute Tarnopolski, Miller said.

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IF there was evidence to prosecute without her testimony they still could have. I'm not trying to argue or be difficult. The sixth amendment is an incredibly complex and contentiously litigated issue, but if there is one thing that is clear is that the right to confront your accuser attaches when certain types of evidence is offered against you in court. When evidence that qualifies as "testimonial" is offered the State must make the source of it available for cross examination, unless the source is "unavailable" and was previously subjected to cross examination. If offering the evidence violates the defendant's sixth amendment right to confront their accuser then the remedy is that the state just cannot use it and they must rely on whatever other evidence they do have. The sixth amendment absolutely does not bar prosecution because any given witness is unavailable to testify. The State can always prove their case if they are able even without calling a single witness to the stand at all.

But, most of us do not read the NYT or other mega papers which seem to tend to cover more national issues than state. I have rarely read a paper larger than the Sacramento Bee or the San Jose Mercury News and those are big papers, but also occasionally get it wrong.

Everyone can get it wrong.

The point is that the matter was not dropped due to no ability to face the accuser, but due to a lack of evidence.

The Michigan case mirrors what vexxed asked about in his thread. A dead accuser and no evidence against the accused except the accuser's testimony.

In the Michigan case, it came down to the fact that the 18-year-old suspect could not face his accuser, and facing his accuser would have been necessary because the accuser's testimony was the state's only evidence against the suspect. So, while I understand what both of you are saying, in this particular case the accused would have had the Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser, the only witness, the only evidence against him. The prosecutor had no choice but to dismiss the charges when the girl committed suicide.

Certainly if the state had had other evidence or witnesses to testify on the rape charge, they could have attempted to continue the case against the student, and if they had had other evidence or other witnesses to testify on the rape charge, the girl's testimony may not have been necessary.

I want to apologize, by the way, Carl. I think you were responding to a post that I decided to delete so I could read what Caveman wrote and reply to both of you at once.

My earlier response to you was that, yes, one must always look at the source of information. Some sources are more reliable than others. A person should not rely solely (if ever) on legal information provided on television shows or solely (if ever) on legal information provided by Wikipedia (and then I think I said something about how a person should not rely solely on legal information provided by anonymous posters on an internet forum, either ).

However, media sources are often reliable sources, especially the larger and more prominent media publications (ie. ABC, The New York Times), because these media sources have large editorial staffs and large legal staffs that work to ensure that all that is published is accurate.

As far as vexxed original question goes, and with the additional information he provided, it sounds very much like the Michigan case and it sounds very much like the sexual assault case would have to be dismissed. Of course, as with everything in law, it would depend on ALL of the facts.

Hrm, time for me to show my legal ignorance: I always thought that in the case of criminal charges that the "accuser" becomes the state, and the victim merely becomes a witness (my basis for this comes from charges that stem from domestic dispute situations, and strengthened my opinion when the victim tries to drop charges but the state continues anyways). Please definitely correct my misconceptions.