Minnesota Supreme Court holds that young child’s statements to CPS worker are non-testimonial and therefore admissible.
State of Minnesota v. Orlando Manuel Bobadilla, State of Minnesota in Supreme Court, #A03-1891 (Feb. 9, 2006)
Orlando Manual Bobadilla was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual assault in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.343, subd. 1(a) (2004) for digitally penetrating the anus of his 3-year-old nephew. The trial court admitted the statements of his nephew (3-year-old T.B.) that were made to a child-protection worker in the course of a risk-assessment interview. On appeal, the court of appeals reversed his conviction and remanded for a new trial, concluding that, pursuant to Crawford v. Washington, 541 US 36 (2004), the admission at trial of statements made by T.B. to the child-protection worker had violated Bobadilla’s rights under the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals’ decision, concluding that the child’s statements were non-testimonial, and therefore not in violation of the Confrontation Clause.
After picking up T.B. from a visit with his father, who lived with Bobadilla, T.B.’s mother “noticed that his bottom was a little red” and asked him what happened. After some hesitation, he told her that “his Uncle Orlando had put his finger in his ‘booty’,” T.B.’s word for buttocks. Along with T.B.’s father and grandmother, T.B.’s mother took T.B. to the hospital, where he was examined by an emergency room physician. The physician observed an abnormal erythema, or redness, around his rectum, which he believed was consistent with what the child had disclosed. A police officer was dispatched and spoke to the emergency room nurse and T.B.’s parents, at which time he forwarded his report to the Investigations Unit of the police department and the Kandiyohi County Family Service Department. Several days later, the child-protection worker interviewed T.B. at the law enforcement center. The child-protection worker conducted the interview using the CornerHouse protocol, while the interview was being taped and a detective observed the interview, sitting across from the child-protection worker and T.B. T.B. disclosed that his Uncle Orlando hurt him by touching his “booty,” and pointing to the buttocks area on a diagram. Bobadilla was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
At trial, T.B. was found to be incompent to testify, and the trial court admitted his statements to his mother and his statements in the child-protective interview, finding that the statements were sufficiently reliable to permit their admission as substantive evidence under the hearsay exception embodied in Minn. Stat. § 595.02, subd. 3(2004). The court also allowed the state to show the videotape of T.B.’s interview. Bobadilla appealed his conviction, challenging certain evidentiary rulings, and argued that T.B.’s statements in the child-protection interview were testimonial statements and therefore the admission of those statements without a prior opportunity for cross-examination violated his constitutional right of confrontation under the Crawford decision. The court of appeals agreed that his right of confrontation had been violated and reversed his conviction.
The Minnesota Supreme Court granted the state’s petition for review and reinstated Bobadilla’s conviction based on the determination that T.B.’s statements were non-testimonial. The court articulated the standard set forth by the Crawford Court, which bars all “testimonial” out-of-court statements when the accused is not afforded “a prior opportunity to cross-examine” the declarant. In this case, because T.B. was not subject to cross-examination, the sole inquiry under the Confrontation Clause was whether T.B’s statements were “testimonial.” The court acknowledged that the Crawford Court failed to articulate a comprehensive definition of testimonial statements, and after much discussion and deliberation, determined that the key to determining whether a statement is testimonial is whether a declarant or government questioner is acting, to a substantial degree, in order to produce a statement for trial. This is determined by asking whether a reasonable government questioner or declarant in the relevant situation would exhibit that purpose.
The court distinguished the case at hand from other child-declarant cases where it was determined that the child’s statements were testimonial by finding that in those cases, either the declarant or government questioner was acting, to a substantial degree, in order to produce a statement at trial. The court determined that neither the child protection worker nor the child declarant acted with such purposes in this case; the interview with the child-protection worker was conducted for the purpose of protecting the health and welfare of children, in accordance with the Minnesota statute. The court found that the interview was initiated by a child-protection worker in response to a report of sexual abuse with the overriding purpose of assessing whether the abuse occurred and whether steps were needed to protect the health and welfare of the child. Most significantly, the court stated that “if part of the purpose of this interview was to produce a statement for use at a future trial, such a purpose was at best incidental to the main purpose: assessing and responding to imminent risks to T.B.’s health and welfare.” The court acknowledges the presence of law enforcement at the interview, but states that this fact does not change the purpose of the interview or of the interviewer. The court also acknowledges the compelling need for a single recorded assessment interview in order to minimize the child’s exposure to stress and trauma. Therefore, in spite of the fact that the detective was present for the interview, the interview was still deemed as an assessment, not as an evidence-gathering interview in preparation for trial. As such, the court found that neither the child-protection worker nor the child declarant, T.B., was acting, to a substantial degree, in order to produce a statement for trial and T.B.’s statements were therefore non-testimonial.
As a sidenote, the court also refers to amicus American Prosecutors Research Institute, agreeing that children of T.B.’s age are unable to understand the legal system and consequences of statements made during the legal process. However, the essence of their determination rests on the fact that the interview was conducted for the purpose of assessing T.B.’s health and welfare, not for the purpose of producing a statement for trial, making T.B.’s young age less relevant in the court’s legal analysis.
As an additional note, the court made the determination that not all statements made to law enforcement are testimonial. Where a police officer is responding to a situation where preservation for trial is merely incidental to other purposes, such as assessing and responding to an immediate danger, a statement will not be deemed testimonial. Even where officers at the scene were acting at least to some degree with an evidence-gathering purpose, statements gathered will be deemed non-testimonial where the officers’ actions were primarily “a response to a call for assistance and preliminary determination of ‘what happened’ and whether there was immediate danger, rather than an effort to gather evidence for a future trial.” The court compared this situation to the present case, where any evidence-gathering purposes are incidental to the primary purpose of assessing the danger and determining ‘what happened.’
Footnotes
1 State v. Bobadilla, No. A03-1891 (Minn. Filed Feb. 9, 2006).
2 The RATAC Protocol, developed by CornerHouse, involves rapport building, anatomy identification, touch inquiry, abuse scenario, and closure.
3 Bobadilla, No. A01-1891 at 6 (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61).
4 Id. at 10.
5 Minn. Stat. § 626.556, subd. 1 (2004).
6 Bobadilla, No. A01-1891 at 14.
7 Id. at 10 (citing Hammon v. State, 829 N.E.2d 444, 458 (Ind. 2005)).
8 Id. at 10 (citing to State v. Wright, 701 N.W.2d 802, 813-814 (Minn. 2005)).
9 Id. at 14.
