Opinion ID: 2638571
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Kathy Keating-Harvey

Text: The plurality correctly holds R.G. never testified for purposes of the confrontation clause about her incriminating hearsay statements to child therapist Kathy Keating-Harvey. Plurality at 868. However, the plurality concludes Keating-Harvey's testimony was admissible under the medical hearsay exception, ER 803(a)(4), and therefore concludes Grasso suffered no prejudice. Plurality at 868-69. To support this bald conclusion the plurality cites State v. Butler, 53 Wash. App. 214, 766 P.2d 505 (1989). See plurality at 868. I disagree. Butler held the defendant suffered no prejudice when the trial court improperly admitted a hearsay statement under the excited utterance exception, ER 803(a)(2), because the statement was independently admissible under the medical diagnosis exception, ER 803(a)(4). Butler, 53 Wash.App. at 217, 219, 766 P.2d 505. Butler may have addressed hearsay, but it did not involve a confrontation clause violation. This case does. To analyze the prejudice prong under Butler is to treat the confrontation clause as a codification of the hearsay rule, an approach squarely rejected by the United States Supreme Court. Green, 399 U.S. at 155-56, 90 S.Ct. 1930; see also Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 86, 91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970) (plurality opinion of Stewart, J.). The plurality, however, concludes this analysis is appropriate because the United States Supreme Court held the medical diagnosis exception is firmly rooted. Plurality at 868-69 (quoting White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 357, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992)). The Court in White so held because a patient's out-of-court declarations to his or her medical care professional provide substantial guarantees of their trustworthiness, White, 502 U.S. at 355, 112 S.Ct. 736. However, in the context of child hearsay, ER 803(a)(4) is not a firmly rooted hearsay exception. State v. Florczak, 76 Wash.App. 55, 68, 882 P.2d 199 (1994); see also State v. Kilgore, 107 Wash.App. 160, 183, 26 P.3d 308 (2001) (The medical diagnosis exception is normally a firmly rooted exception, but this is not true for statements by very young children under the alternative test in Florczak. ). The court in Florczak recognized that it has only been in the last 15 years that the medical diagnosis exception has extended in this state to include out-of-court statements to health care professionals from children too young to comprehend the purpose of the statements. Florczak, 76 Wash.App. at 69, 882 P.2d 199. Conversely, traditional medical diagnosis hearsay is firmly rooted because it dates back for more than two centuries. White, 502 U.S. at 356 n. 8, 112 S.Ct. 736. Thus, child hearsay, even if made to a medical professional, does not bear the sufficient indicia of reliability to satisfy the confrontation clause's reliability requirement. Accord Rohrich, 132 Wash.2d at 480, 939 P.2d 697 ([N]othing about child hearsay indicates the hearsay statement would be more reliable than an in-court declaration of the same accusation.). The child declarant must therefore testify in order to admit the out-of-court statements. Id. at 481, 939 P.2d 697. While Washington's child hearsay statute, RCW 9A.44.120, may provide more protection than the confrontation clause, it certainly does not provide less. Accord Clark, 139 Wash.2d at 157, 985 P.2d 377. Moreover, aside from the hearsay, R.G.'s substantive testimony may have exculpated the defendant had she been responsive. As R.G. did not testify for purposes of the confrontation clause, Grasso suffered the same actual and substantial prejudice as did the defendant in Rohrich.