Court Opinion

ID: 9528058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:40.08281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:25.669226
License: Public Domain

De MUNIZ, J.,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
Before hearing any other testimony, the court held a competency hearing to determine whether C would be able to testify in any helpful manner. The court and two of the lawyers asked C several questions about where she lived, who she lived with, what her phone number was, what she had for breakfast, what her dad’s name was, and so forth. In response to most of the questions, she either gave no audible response or she answered, “I don’t know.” The court found that she was not competent to testify, because she was “unable to *286communicate or to formulate communications about anything other than very proximate historical facts, what she had for breakfast, what she had for lunch.”
The court admitted hearsay statements by C, in which she identified her father and her stepfather as people who had sexually abused her, and the court made C a ward of the court. The court concluded that C’s half-sister, K, was also at risk of sexual abuse, because K lived in a home that included C’s stepfather (K’s father). The court therefore made K a ward of the court also. The only bases for making K a ward of the court were the hearsay statements made by C to Weir during therapy sessions at the Morrison Center. For the reasons expressed below, I conclude that the court erred by admitting those statements, and that it therefore erred by making K a ward of the court. However, the record contains sufficient admissible evidence that shows that C was sexually abused by someone while she was living in her father’s home,1 and I conclude that the court did not err by making her a ward of the court and awarding custody of her to her mother.
The sole issue in this case is whether statements made by a child to a graduate student, who was doing a social work practicum, but was not licensed in any way by the state,2 are admissible under the hearsay exception for statements that are made for the purposes of medical treatment or diagnosis. OEC 803(4). As the majority recognizes, the admissibility of hearsay under that rule depends on the declarant’s motive in making the statements. 121 Or App at 270. As we said in State v. Newby, 97 Or App 598, 777 P2d 994, rev den 308 Or 660 (1989),
“the declarant’s motive in making the statement to the medical provider must be to promote treatment or diagnosis.” 97 Or App at 601. (Emphasis supplied.)
That prerequisite to admissibility was not present, and the court erred by admitting C’s statements to Weir.
*287Hearsay may be admissible under OEC 803(4) only if the declarant’s purpose is to obtain medical diagnosis or treatment. State v. Moen, 309 Or 45, 55, 786 P2d 111 (1990). In determining whether C had that purpose when she made her statements, we must examine the circumstances under which she made them. State v. Barkley, 315 Or 420, 424, 846 P2d 390 (1993).
In Barkley, the child’s statements about sexual and physical abuse were properly admitted, because the record showed that
“the child knew (a) that the purpose of the interview [with a medical professional] was to obtain a medical diagnosis or treatment and (b) that she had to be truthful to advance that medical treatment or diagnosis.” 315 Or at 426.
The record in this case does not reflect that C had a similar understanding. Yet the majority virtually ignores the circumstances under which she made her statements and the requirement that the declarant be motivated to promote treatment or diagnosis.
Weir saw C once a week at the Morrison Center. She found that C had a very limited ability “to deal in the abstract.” Consequently, Weir “us[ed] lots of examples and lots of repeating of questions” when she worked with the child. She testified that she used positive feedback when C did something correctly, like adding the numbers on the dice during games.
Weir testified about C’s understanding of their weekly sessions:
“Q. [D]oes C understand what your weekly meetings, what the purpose of them is?
“A. That’s a very interesting question. I think that what [she] understands is that I’m the person that she comes to talk about sad things, would be how [she] would describe what she does with me probably. And she would also probably say that we play and have a good time, play games. * * *
“I don’t think [she] has the vaguest idea of what the word ‘therapy’ means, but yes, she does understand that I am there to help her.”
*288Although Weir periodically met with a supervising psychiatrist, the psychiatrist never examined C, and Weir never told the girl that she worked with a doctor.3
Long before obtaining statements about sexual abuse from C, Weir assumed that the child had been sexually abused. On January 24, 1991, she wrote in a report that C continued to avoid sexual abuse issues in both talk and play. In a January 31 report, Weir indicated that there was “no change, still no disclosure.” In a February 7 report, she wrote, “C avoids any exploration regarding sexual abuse.” On February 14, she wrote, “C has made no disclosures.”
In early March, C’s foster mother told Weir that C had.said that she had been sexually abused by her father and her stepfather. Weir decided to videotape her next session with the girl.4 The videotape shows C, the foster mother and Weir playing a board game. The game involved role playing and answering hypothetical questions.5 At one point, Weir set the board aside and used a series of leading questions and “anatomically correct” dolls to ask C about the sexual abuse *289that she assumed had taken place. Weir testified that she was not supposed to use leading questions, because that would risk compromising the reliability of the child’s answers.6 In response to Weir’s leading questions, C indicated that her father and her stepfather had sexually abused her.7 Weir then asked this non-leading question, “Can you tell me again the names of the people that did this to you?” C shook her head no. Weir retrieved the board game, and the three resumed playing.8
*290In their next four sessions, Weir and C discussed the sexual abuse issues that had been brought up during the March 7 session. C then drew the stick figures that are described by the majority. 121 Or App at 268.
Hearsay is ordinarily inadmissible, because it is not trustworthy. OEC 802; Sheedy v. Stall, 255 Or 594, 596, 468 P2d 529 (1970). However, there are exceptions to the general rule, such as the exception for statements that are made for purposes of medical treatment or diagnosis. The cornerstone of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule is that some statements are “made under circumstances calculated to give [them] some special trustworthiness.” State v. Kendrick, 239 Or 512, 515, 398 P2d 471 (1965). The record establishes that the statements at issue in this case were not made under those sorts of circumstances.
In C’s experience with Weir, she had been asked questions repeatedly and was praised when she finally gave the correct answers. Although Weir assumed that C had been sexually abused, Weir consistently wrote in her reports that C continued to avoid sexual abuse issues and that she “made no disclosures” before the videotaped session. During that session, she made statements about sexual abuse that were elicited by inappropriate leading questions, during a recess from a game that required her to use her imagination to make things up. Those are hardly the sort of circumstances that are “calculated to give [her statements] some special trustworthiness.” State v. Kendrick, supra, 239 Or at 515. To the contrary, those are circumstances virtually guaranteed to generate unreliable statements.
The importance of protecting innocent children from sexual predators cannot be minimized. However, I cannot join the majority’s application of OEC 803(4), which stretches the rule beyond its limits to admit statements that have nothing to do with a desire to obtain medical treatment or diagnosis. C’s statements are not admissible under OEC 803(4) or any other exception to the hearsay rule.
The only bases for making K a ward of the court were the allegations that C’s stepfather had sexually abused C. Apart from C’s statements, the drawings and the videotape, there is no evidence identifying her stepfather as a person *291who had molested her. The court erred by making K a ward of the court, and this court perpetuates that error.

 The admissibility of that evidence is unchallenged.

 Weir testified that she was a “qualified mental health professional.” However, she also testified that she had not completed her degree and that she was not licensed in any way by the state.

 Weir was required to meet with the psychiatrist within 45 days after her initial contact with a client to review the treatment plan that Weir had developed. The psychiatrist would either approve the plan or suggest revisions, and the two would meet once every 45 days after that to discuss the client’s progress.

 The majority mistakenly characterizes the circumstances under which Weir made the tape. Weir testified:
“I routinely tape all of my clients for whom I have permission to tape. I am part — as part of my educational process at Morrison Center and Portland State I am part of a supervisory review group where we routinely review each other’s — the tapes of each other’s work * *
However, Weir never testified that she showed the tape of C to the licensed clinical social worker, to the supervising psychiatrist or to anyone else in her supervisory review group. Moreover, her testimony does not reveal whether she relayed C’s statements about sexual abuse to any person who was licensed to make a medical diagnosis or to prescribe treatment. The record does not support an inference that the session was taped for “therapeutic purposes.” 121 Or App at 273.

 The role-playing game included:
“What’s the worst thing you can do to someone?”
“What’s the best thing you can say about your family?”
“You’ve just written a book. What are you going to call the book?”
“Make up a dream.”
“What do you think of a boy that sometimes plays with his penis?”
“Act like a baby.”
“If you had to be changed into something else, what would you be?”

 Weir explained why leading questions jeopardize the truth seeking process:
“Q. You’re not supposed to use leading questions.
“A. That’s very true.
“Q. [Wlhat is the danger in asking leading questions?
“A. Well, the danger is that you would influence the child.
“Q. [Dio you know what the term ‘contamination’ means in a context of reporting sexual abuse?
“A. Yes.
“Q. What does that mean?
“A. It means when something has come in to interfere with the evidence?
“Q. Okay. Now, would you agree that in the therapeutic model that you’re using, that there’s a higher risk of contamination than in the [CARES] protocol that we’ve been discussing?
“A. The therapeutic model that I’m using.
“Q. Would you agree that —
“A. Yes.
“Q. Okay. Would you agree that by using leading questions there’s a higher risk of contamination?
“A. Yes.”

 As the majority’s excerpts from the interview show, Weir’s leading questions clearly suggested to C that her stepdad Jim molested her. 121 Or App at 276-78. The issue here is not whether C was molested. The issue is by whom.

 The majority claims that “C had previously disclosed that she had been touched inappropriately.” 121 Or App at 268 n 2. That assertion reads too much into Weir’s testimony. She testified:
"On one occasion [before the videotaped interview] I very directly asked her if she had ever been touched, and she said yes. But she was — this was very early on and she was so-so reactive to that question and I chose not to pursue it any further at that time * *
The record does not indicate what question Weir asked C in that early session, or what C’s answer was. There is absolutely nothing in Weir’s testimony indicating that C said anything about how she was touched, where she was touched, by whom or under what circumstances. Any assertion that she was touched inappropriately amounts to sheer speculation.