Court Opinion

ID: 9586907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:16:21.73376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:55.605306
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
The Court today reverses Wright’s conviction because of an alleged violation of the right to confrontation under the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution. The majority opinion concludes that “Dr. Jambura’s testimony as presented lacks particularized guarantees of trustworthiness and, in fact, is fraught with the dangers of unreliability which the Confrontation Clause is designed to highlight and obviate.” 116 Idaho at 389, 775 P.2d at 1231. The majority reaches this conclusion after conducting an analysis totally unlike any confrontation clause analysis previously used by any court, particularly the United States Supreme Court. As I deduce from the opinion’s analysis, from now on all hearsay statements by very young children are inadmissible unless they are either (1) uttered spontaneously and excitedly, or (2) made in response to “open-ended” questions from a specially trained professional during a videotaped interview and the evidence establishes that the child’s memory was not “confabulated” by previous improper interviews. To my knowledge no court, state or federal, has ever held that the majority opinion’s proposed standards are required by the sixth amendment confrontation clause. The opinion cites no case, federal or state, which has adopted such a severely limited application of the federal confrontation clause “indicia of reliability” test. Certainly the most recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court have not imposed the above requirements set out in the majority opinion. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970), and Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), hold that hearsay is admissible under the confrontation clause if it bears “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness” and “indicia of reliability.” But, as those opinions point out, the “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness” and “indicia of reliability” are to be determined from all of the facts and circumstances, not just the requirements set forth in the majority opinion. The United States Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of the interpretation and requirements of the sixth amendment confrontation clause of the United States Constitution, has never suggested that the majority opinion’s standards are constitutionally required. In utilizing this restrictive method of analysis, the opinion errs seriously and essentially ignores the “indicia of reliability *390test” set forth by the United States Supreme Court.
While the majority opinion concludes that the hearsay evidence of Dr. Jambura was erroneously admitted because it violates the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution, much of the analysis sounds as though the opinion was based upon state evidentiary law. Thus, by placing emphasis on whether a child abuse victim’s statement to a professional was “excited,” the majority opinion highlights hearsay exception I.R.E. 803(2) to the exclusion of other hearsay exceptions, particularly I.R.E. 803(24) which requires the same circumstantial guarantees of truthfulness equivalent to the excited utterance exception. The opinion seems to wrongly conclude that a child’s words are only reliable when uttered excitedly. However, as this Court pointed out in State v. Hester, when comparing the other exceptions to the hearsay rule to the excited utterance exception in I.R.E. 803(2), “Once these elements [the elements of trustworthiness required under I.R.E. 803(24)] are met,.the I.R.E. 803(24) exception is equally as valid as any other hearsay exception, such as the universally accepted present sense impression and the excited utterance exceptions, etc.” State v. Hester, 114 Idaho at 697, 760 P.2d at 36 (1988) (emphasis added).
Under the majority’s new standards for its confrontation clause analysis, evidence which would otherwise satisfy the “trustworthiness” and “indicia of reliability” standard established by the United States Supreme Court, especially corroborating physical and medical evidence, appears to become irrelevant. Excited utterances seem to be the only constitutionally accepted type of hearsay which is admissible, short of complying with the new standards which, as a practical matter, can never be met.
A child’s report of sexual abuse is not always spoken excitedly, and it is not always directed at a professional specifically trained in interviewing child victim’s of sexual abuse, as the majority now seems to require. A professional, such as a family pediatrician, may observe evidence of sexual abuse while conducting a routine examination of a young patient. The doctor may question the youngster and receive important hearsay evidence. Under the law pronounced today, this evidence will be inadmissible unless the doctor was trained specifically to interview child victims of sexual abuse and asked no “closed-ended” questions. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that the interview would have been videotaped. Family doctors do not normally film their examinations of young patients; most probably do not have video cameras in their examining rooms. Furthermore, many rural communities do not have the financial means to set up extensive videotape facilities to aid in the preparation of criminal cases. Until today, there were no such requirements under either state or federal law.
The majority opinion also makes an erroneous application of the facts of the case to its new confrontation clause standard. For instance, the opinion’s discussion implies that the younger daughter’s statements came after her memory was “confabulated” by previous improper interviews. On the contrary, Dr. Jambura was the first interviewer. Therefore, the record does not support a finding that the younger daughter’s statement to Dr. Jambura was affected by prior memory confabulation or improper tainting.
The majority’s opinion further concludes that, “The [child’s] statements lack trustworthiness because this interrogation was performed by someone with a preconceived idea of what the child should be disclosing.” 116 Idaho at 385, 775 P.2d at 1227. This statement suggests that the Court is setting an additional standard, which requires that the interrogation be performed by someone who has no idea what the child will be disclosing. In the usual case the specially trained professional will be advised of the purpose of the physical examination, either by the parents or by the authorities, and thus will have “a preconceived idea of what the child should be disclosing,” which the majority opinion says disqualifies him from testifying. This case is such an example. The day before *391Dr. Jambura examined the 2V2 year old girl, he had also examined her 5 year old sister and uncovered evidence of sexual abuse on the older girl. He was also informed of the older sister’s statement to law enforcement and medical personnel explaining how she and her sister had been sexually abused by Wright and Giles. He also knew that the younger daughter had just been taken away from her parents and put into protective custody. To automatically disqualify an interviewer because he has “a preconceived idea of what the child should be disclosing” will, in all probability, eliminate the use of nearly all statements made by young children to medical doctors, psychologists or social workers. That result is certainly not required by the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution, according to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980); California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970). And it certainly is not required under the evidentiary laws of the State of Idaho, as our recent cases have held. State v. Giles, 115 Idaho 984, 772 P.2d 191 (1989); State v. Hester, 114 Idaho 688, 760 P.2d 17 (1988).
I would affirm the judgment and sentence of the district court for the same reasons set out in our opinion dealing with the co-defendant Giles in State v. Giles, supra.