Dog put to test, gets judge’s nod for trial
Canine to comfort child in rape case
CONWAY — Barb, the Faulkner County courthouse dog, was lying at the feet of a witness when the prosecutor shouted a question.
“I just yelled my question, which was whether Barb was trained not to react to noises,” Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Hugh Finkelstein recalled Tuesday. “There were papers already on the witness box, so I threw them on her.”
And how did the 70- pound dog with mostly white fur and golden ears and a golden streak down her back react?
“Barb looked at me but did not react,” Finkelstein said.
After that demonstration and court testimony Monday, Circuit Judge Charles Clawson Jr. ruled that the dog can accompany a 10- year- old witness when she testifies against the man accused of raping her.
As part of the national
courthouse- dog program, Barb, who is three- fourths Labrador retriever and one- fourth golden retriever, is trained to be quiet and still during testimony or in other situations such as when investigators are questioning a child about a case. The dogs’ presence can help calm some witnesses during testimony and during investigators’ questioning outside court, supporters of the program say.
Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said Clawson’s decision marks “a momentous time for a program that has already been impactful for young victims visiting our office for meetings.”
“It’s finally time to take the next step and allow young victims in these type of cases to have the comfort of a facility dog with them when testifying in court,” Hiland said in a text message Tuesday.
In a motion earlier this month, Hiland’s office had proposed using Barb during the trial, starting Nov. 15. The motion said the child and the dog had established a relationship and that the pet’s presence “may reduce anxiety experienced by the child witness while testifying.”
Attorney Lynn Plemmons, who represents defendant Edgar Torrance, 64, of Conway, challenged the dog’s presence during testimony.
Plemmons was out of his office Tuesday and did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Faulkner County is the first
place in Arkansas to have a courthouse- dog program, and the Torrance case is not the first one to challenge a dog’s presence in a courtroom.
In other states, some defense attorneys have indicated that they feel that jurors may view a witness as being “more credible or more likable or really more likely a victim because they have” the dog there, Ellen O’Neill- Stephens, a former prosecutor who founded the Courthouse Dogs Foundation based in Edmonds, Wash., has said.
O’Neill- Stephens said in January 2015 that all of those cases “have found, that under certain circumstances, it is appropriate for the dog to be there.”
The dogs enter and leave the courtroom outside of the jurors’ presence. Like the other canines, Barb is trained to lie under the witness box in a position so that jurors don’t see her.
Hiland said jurors will be advised about the dog at the start of the trial but will not be told which witness the dog will accompany.