by Sam Rutherford

The Supreme Court of Idaho held that a trial court violated a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights by admitting video recorded interviews of a child witness at his trial on charges that he sexually assaulted the child where the child did not testify, thereby depriving the defendant of an opportunity to cross-examine the witness.

Background

William Parsons was charged with sexually abusing his live-in girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter. The child was taken to the hospital for a sexual assault examination on the day the allegations arose. Police subsequently scheduled an appointment to interview the child at a local hospital specializing in providing care to child victims and conducting forensic interviews. The interview was conducted by a medical social worker 24 days after the allegations arose. The purpose of the interview was to “fully understand” the child’s allegations. The interview was supervised by law enforcement via a closed-circuit TV. It was also recorded. A second recorded interview was conducted about three months later.

            The child did not testify at trial because the State did not want to put her “through more trauma and mak[e] her recount sexual abuse in a room full of 12 strangers[.]” Instead, the State moved to admit the video interviews at trial over Parsons’ Confrontation Clause objection. The trial court admitted the evidence ruling that while the videos were hearsay, they were nonetheless admissible under Idaho Rule of Evidence 803(4) as statements made for the purpose of medical diagnosis and treatment. The trial court further determined that such admission did not violate Parsons’ constitutional rights because the hearsay statements were not testimonial in nature. Parsons was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Analysis

Parsons timey appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court, arguing that admission of the video interviews violated the Confrontation Clause, which provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. The Confrontation Clause bars “admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant has had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004).

The Court stated that the question presented in Parsons’ case was whether the videos of the child-witness interviews conducted by a social worker and observed by police were “testimonial” and therefore inadmissible at trial.

The Court noted that the Crawford Court “did not provide an exhaustive definition or list of ‘testimonial’ statements, but left formulating a comprehensive definition for ‘another day.’” However, the Crawford Court did provide a “core class” of statements that are testimonial, and the U.S. Supreme Court “has continued to build on this list over the years,” according to the Court. See Ohio v. Clark, 576 U.S. 237 (2015). (Note: See the opinion for full list of statements that are testimonial in nature, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

Statements by a witness who does not appear at trial are testimonial where “in light of all the circumstances, viewed objectively, the primary purpose of the conversation was to create an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony.” Clark (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Stated differently, statements are testimonial “when the circumstances objectively indicate … that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006).

This is an objective test that turns on “matters of objective fact[;]” a reviewing court should not delve into the subjective purpose or motives of the individuals involved in the interrogation but should instead determine “the purpose that reasonable participants would have had, as ascertained from the individuals’ statements and actions and the circumstances in which the encounter occurred.” Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344, 360 (2011).

Relying primarily on its previous decision in State v. Hooper, 176 P.3d 911 (Idaho 2007) (instructing that videotaped statements made by child during forensic interview at sexual abuse center can have two-fold purpose of both “medical treatment and forensic use” but concluding the statements in the case were testimonial and thus erroneously admitted), the Court determined that admission of the video interviews violated Parsons’ rights under the Confrontation Clause. The videos contained testimonial hearsay because they were conducted by a forensic evaluator well after the child initially reported the abuse and received medical treatment, the Court reasoned.

Moreover, the police scheduled and then observed the interviews via a closed-circuit TV. While acknowledging that the interviews did serve the “dual purpose” of “both medical and forensic needs,” the Court nonetheless concluded that the primary purpose of the interviews “was to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution rather than to provide medical care[.]”

The Court also acknowledged that the video interviews unquestionably contained hearsay that was admissible under Evidence Rule 803(4) as statements made for the purpose of medical diagnosis and treatment. In fact, the Court had previously determined that nearly identical videos were admissible hearsay in a similar case, but there was no Confrontation Clause issue in that case because the child witnesses testified at trial. See State v. Christensen, 458 P.3d 951 (Idaho 2020). In the present case, however, the Confrontation Clause issue was present because the child witness did not testify, explained the Court. Her out-of-court statements, as memorialized in the video interviews and presented to the jury at trial, were “admissible only if she were unavailable and only if Parsons had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness.” See Bryant. Because neither of these factors was present, the Court ruled that the admission of the video interviews violated the Sixth Amendment.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed Parsons’ convictions and remanded the case for a new trial. See: State v. Parsons, 543 P.3d 465 (Idaho 2024).

Editor’s note: The Idaho Constitution does not contain a confrontation clause, so the Court analyzed the question at issue in the case solely under the U.S. Constitution’s Confrontation Clause. Accordingly, anyone interested in Confrontation Clause issues is encouraged to read the Court’s full opinion, which contains a more detailed analysis of the Confrontation Clause than is possible in this brief summary of the Court’s opinion.

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