11.   He also turned down a defense request to examine the child witnesses by closed-circuit television.

12.   He said the lawyers failed to object to the seating arrangement for the child witnesses at the trial.

13.   In the last several months, prosecutors may have stretched their cases and their child witnesses too far.

14.   In that case, a judge ruled earlier this year that lawyers for the women made a mistake by not objecting to the seating arrangements for the child witnesses.

15.   It also contends that psychotropic drugs were used on children in state foster care, affecting their testimony, and that coercive methods were used on the child witnesses.

16.   Middlesex prosecutors challenged that ruling, but the SJC decided to allow Borenstein to hear evidence on the reliability of child witnesses.

17.   Massive media coverage over the last two weeks made us and our children witnesses to a horrendous crime.

18.   Perez was confronted with discrepancies in a police report he typed up after an interview with a child witness.

19.   Prosecutors said they will not be able to retry the case without the child witnesses.

20.   Suffolk District Attorrney Ralph C. Martin II said that the special seating arrangement was devised to minimize additional mental damage to child witnesses in abuse cases.