## Facts

- Three-year-old B.A. told her mother that her “potty” hurt and said her mother’s boyfriend, Steven Allen Beadle, tried to put his “tail” inside her.
- B.A.’s mother confronted Beadle in B.A.’s presence; Beadle reacted with an emotional outburst that frightened B.A.
- After Beadle was later incarcerated on an unrelated matter, B.A. continued over the next year to make “tail” references in drawings and statements and showed anxiety about “getting in trouble.”
- In a later disclosure to a family member, B.A. identified the “tail” as Beadle’s and described it as “all sticky,” while appearing extremely anxious.
- A detective and a CPS worker conducted a recorded joint interview of B.A.; B.A. also made out-of-court disclosures to family members and to mental-health providers.
- At a pretrial hearing on child hearsay, four-year-old B.A. had a serious emotional breakdown and refused to testify despite attempts and accommodations, including an option to testify by closed-circuit television.
- The trial court found B.A. unavailable, admitted her out-of-court statements under RCW 9A.44.120 through adult witnesses, and admitted evidence describing her breakdown.
- A jury convicted Beadle of first-degree child molestation; the conviction was affirmed on appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether severe emotional distress preventing meaningful testimony supported a finding that the child victim was unavailable for Confrontation Clause purposes.
2. Whether the child’s out-of-court statements were admissible under RCW 9A.44.120, including whether they were testimonial and whether they had sufficient indicia of reliability and corroboration.
3. Whether evidence describing the child’s emotional breakdown was irrelevant or unfairly prejudicial under ER 401 and ER 403.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
- The court upheld the trial court’s unavailability finding, concluding that the child’s severe emotional distress and refusal to testify, despite reasonable efforts and accommodations, supported unavailability.
- The court upheld admission of the child’s out-of-court statements under RCW 9A.44.120, concluding the statements were properly admitted as child hearsay and did not violate confrontation requirements.
- The court upheld admission of evidence describing the child’s emotional breakdown, holding it was relevant and not unfairly prejudicial.

## Legal Principles

- A child witness may be found unavailable when extreme emotional distress prevents meaningful testimony, particularly where the trial court has attempted reasonable accommodations and observed the child’s inability to testify.
- Under RCW 9A.44.120, a child’s out-of-court statements describing sexual abuse may be admitted if the statements show sufficient indicia of reliability and, when the child is unavailable, there is corroborative evidence of the act.
- For confrontation analysis, statements are generally nontestimonial when the primary purpose of the interaction is to address a child’s safety, protection, or treatment rather than to create evidence for prosecution; nontestimonial hearsay does not trigger Crawford’s cross-examination requirement.
- Evidence of a child’s emotional reaction to testifying may be admissible when it explains the child’s absence and bears on assessment of the child’s earlier disclosures, subject to ER 403 balancing.

## Conclusion

The Washington Supreme Court held that a young child’s severe emotional breakdown can support unavailability, upheld admission of the child’s sexual-abuse disclosures under Washington’s child-hearsay statute, and approved admission of breakdown evidence as relevant and not unfairly prejudicial.


State v. Beadle, 173 Wash. 2d 97, 265 P.3d 863 (Wash. 2011)