Darius Clark

Darius Clark, 28, appealed his child abuse conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Courtesy Cuyahoga Count Sheriff's Department)

WASHINGTON, D. C. - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously reinstated the conviction of a Cleveland man who beat his girlfriend's children, rejecting his argument that allowing trial testimony from the three-year-old child's teachers violated the man's constitutional right to confront his accuser in court.

"Mandatory reporting obligations do not convert a conversation between a concerned teacher and her student into a law enforcement mission aimed at gathering evidence for prosecution," said the decision written by Justice Samuel Alito in the case of 28-year-old Darius Clark. "It is irrelevant that the teachers' questions and their duty to report the matter had the natural tendency to result in Clark's prosecution."

The decision sets a nationwide precedent for whether prosecutors can use child abuse information gathered by teachers and day-care workers in court trials where kids can't testify for themselves.

The case against Clark started when teachers at William Patrick Day School spotted whip marks on the boy's face and back, and asked how he got them. He told them Clark - who was dating his mother - had caused the injuries. The teachers relayed the child's statements to law enforcement.

In Cuyahoga County Common Pleas court, Clark was sentenced to 28 years in prison for beating the boy and his younger sister, who had two black eyes and burns on her chest, face, arm and legs. Some of the wounds became infected after they weren't treated.

At the trial, the children's mother testified that Clark was her pimp and that she had left the youngsters in Clark's care while she went to Washington, D.C., to engage in prostitution. Although the boy wasn't found competent to testify, the court let the teachers testify about his statements.

Clark's lawyers successfully appealed his conviction on the grounds that allowing the teachers' testimony denied Clark his constitutional right to confront his accuser - the boy - in court. An appeals court ordered a retrial for Clark on those grounds, and Ohio's Supreme Court upheld its decision.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors appealed that finding to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to review whether teachers' obligation to report child abuse makes them law enforcement agents under the Constitution's "confrontation clause," and whether narratives they get from students amount to "testimonial" statements that prosecutors can't use unless the defendant can cross-examine the child.

In March 2 Supreme Court arguments, Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Meyer and Assistant U.S. Solicitor General Ilana Eisenstein told the the Justices the lower court rulings misinterpreted the Constitution by "viewing teachers here as equivalent to police," as Eisenstein put it.

Stanford University Law Professor Jeffrey Fisher argued on Clark's behalf that prosecutors in Ohio want "to have it both ways" by admitting the abuse statements that small children give to caregivers, without allowing defense lawyers to cross-examine the children. He contended there are "innumerable" reasons a Court might doubt the truth of small children's statements to teachers, including leading questions that teachers might ask.

Alito's ruling said that the child's statements to his teachers weren't made to create evidence for Clark's prosecution, "they occurred in the context of an ongoing emergency involving suspected child abuse. [The] teachers asked questions aimed at identifying and ending a threat."

"As a historical matter, moreover, there is strong evidence that statements made in circumstances like these were regularly admitted at common law," the decision said.

It called the fact that the child was speaking to his teachers "highly relevant."

"Statements to individuals who are not principally charged with uncovering and prosecuting criminal behavior are significantly less likely to be testimonial than those given to law enforcement officers," Alito wrote.

After the decision, Meyer said the ruling ends "a terrible Catch-22 that unjustly favored criminals" who "preyed upon victims too young to testify and then would object to their statements being admitted at trial based on the victim's young age."

"This decision of the United States Supreme Court means that reliable statements of abused young children can be used at trial," said Meyer. "These vulnerable kids now stand protected from predators and pimps like Clark because juries will hear their cries for help."

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine called the decision "an important ruling that preserves Ohio's strong reporting system for protecting children from child abuse."

The National Education Association teacher's union, which feared the case could have a chilling effect on teacher-student interactions, said the ruling clarifies that teachers aren't police.

"We are pleased the Court recognized what educators have long understood - namely, that mandatory reporting laws aren't about prosecuting crimes, but are there to protect abused or neglected children and to ensure those children and their families get the help and support they deserve," said a statement from NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia.

One of Clark's attorneys, Jeff Gamso, responded to the decision by saying the legal team "is disappointed, of course, but there remain issues to be determined in the Ohio courts."

Although Clark was released from prison last year when his child-abuse conviction was overturned, he returned to jail on assault, criminal damaging and burglary charges in September after he was accused of attacking a 17-year-old nursing-home worker at the Broadway Care Center in Maple Heights. Prosecutors say the nursing-home worker he attacked was having a dispute with a girlfriend of Clark's, who also worked in the nursing home. Clark has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

A May 28 indictment accused Clark of running a prostitution ring from the Cuyahoga County Jail while awaiting trial in the Maple Heights assault case. Authorities say Clark used a non-jailed associate to recruit women to work as prostitutes while he issued directions from the jail.

A statement from Assistant County Prosecutor Holly Welsh described Clark as "incorrigible" for "pimping from County Jail while well-intentioned lawyers have been trying to defend his constitutional rights before the Supreme Court of the United States and while he awaits trial on another set of felonies."