Chief Justice Michael Kruse has granted a dismissal motion filed by the Attorney General’s office in a case they filed against a 93-year-old great grandfather facing sexually related charges involving his four-year-old great-granddaughter.

The dismissal motion hearing was held yesterday, where Assistant Attorney General Tiffany Oldfield pointed out that the court heard the defendant’s motion to suppress the statements of the victim and the motion was taken under advisement. A written decision was made suppressing the testimony of the victim concluding that the victim was neither “competent nor reliable.”

The ‘suppress statement’ motion was filed by Sharron Rancourt, attorney for the 93-year-old great grandfather. Samoa News is withholding the name of the defendant to protect the identity of the victim in this matter.

The great-grandfather, who’s out on a surety bond of $15,000 was facing felony charges of child molestation, sodomy, deviate sexual assault, sexual abuse first degree and endangering the welfare of a child. The court’s written decision states that upon reviewing the video-recorded interview, the court found the complaining witness to be a very young child of tender years who was neither articulate nor assertive.

“Consequently, the child was very much non-responsive to the very narrow range of questions fielded repeatedly to her, and we are satisfied that her inability to respond has a lot to do with her maturity level comparable to her very young age.”

“The interview technique employed by the two adults involved, whom we gather from the viewing, were a police officer and the child’s father, who was essentially asking the child repeatedly whether grandpa had touched her and where grandpa had touched her,” says the court order.

These questions rather quickly segued to the defendant after focusing the child to a traumatic event of her being injured while playing on the grave, the child’s agreement that an injury had occurred to her private parts which was elicited after repeated (and leading) questioning.

“The video shows that the child’s isolated responses — that can be construed as implicating the defendant — can hardly be said to have been the product of spontaneous recall.

“Rather, in our view of the totality of the circumstances, the child’s responses were more the result of incessant questioning by the officer and her father, which we have previously mentioned focused principally on whether and where grandpa had touched her” says the order.

The court found that throughout most of the interview the child was unresponsive to the questions, whereby the examining adults (police officer and the father) would ask the same questions repeatedly, even over instances where the child was clearly reacting negatively by shaking her head in a fashion which could also be construed as exculpatory.

In addition the court found that the atmosphere and tone of the questioning was unmistakably coercive to the child, she was close to tears, if not crying at one point during the interview.

“Because the child was mostly unresponsive, the officer managed to very clearly impress upon the visibility reluctant child that she could go home only if she would show where grandpa had touched her, while at another point in the interview, her father verbalized his increasing anger with her, quite clearly due to her continuing reticence.

“Moreover, her father quite clearly articulated at another time that he would not — sasa — (administer corporal punishment) — her. “These veiled warnings, coupled with the drawn out interview process all added up to a threatening and intimidating environment to the child.”

The court found that under the circumstances, the child is neither competent nor reliable as a witness and therefore granted the defense motion to suppress any testimony by the child.

During the dismissal hearing yesterday, Oldfield pointed out that facts and evidence supporting the charges in this case hinge on the testimony of the four-year-old victim and with the victim’s testimony suppressed, the government would not be able to prosecute this case and prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt, because the victim is the only witness to the alleged assault.