## Facts

- St. Paul police received a report alleging that five-year-old I.V. had been sexually abused the prior summer.
- An adult family friend told police that I.V. said a man named “Carlos” drove him in a van to Mounds Park and touched his penis; the friend provided police a short recording of I.V. describing what happened.
- “Carlos” was identified as Charles Glover, who worked for the bus company that transported I.V.
- After police referred the matter, I.V.’s mother brought I.V. to the Midwest Children’s Resource Center (MCRC), a specialty clinic within Minneapolis Children’s Hospital that assesses and treats child abuse.
- At MCRC, Nurse Margaret Carney conducted a video-recorded interview of I.V. in which I.V. described the incident, including that “Carlos” took him to the park, unbuckled him, pulled down his shorts, and touched and squeezed the skin of his penis.
- At later proceedings, I.V. was found incompetent to testify, making him unavailable as a witness at trial.
- The State sought to admit the video recording of the nurse’s interview; Glover moved to suppress the recording on Confrontation Clause grounds, arguing the statements were testimonial.
- The district court granted the motion to suppress, ruling the recorded statements were testimonial and inadmissible because I.V. would not be subject to cross-examination.
- The State appealed the pretrial suppression order.

## Issues

1. Whether a five-year-old child’s video-recorded statements to a nurse at a hospital-based child-abuse clinic, made after a police referral, were “testimonial” so that admitting them when the child was unavailable would violate the Confrontation Clause.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the suppression order and remanded.
- The court held that, in the objective circumstances, the primary purpose of the nurse’s interview was medical assessment and treatment in a child-protection setting, not to create testimony for use at trial.
- Because the child’s statements were non-testimonial, admitting the recording was not barred by the Confrontation Clause even though the child was unavailable to testify.

## Legal Principles

- The Confrontation Clause generally prevents the prosecution from introducing testimonial out-of-court statements unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.
- A statement is testimonial when, viewed objectively, its primary purpose is to establish or prove past events for later use in a criminal prosecution.
- Courts evaluate primary purpose from the objective circumstances of the exchange, including the roles of the questioner and declarant and the setting in which the statements are made.
- Statements made to medical professionals for medical assessment and treatment are commonly non-testimonial, even when they describe past events and may later be useful in a criminal case.
- Police involvement (such as referring a family to a clinic) and the fact that an interview is recorded are relevant to primary purpose but do not, by themselves, turn a medical interview into a law-enforcement interrogation.

## Conclusion

State v. Glover held that a five-year-old’s recorded statements to a nurse at the Midwest Children’s Resource Center were non-testimonial because the interview’s primary purpose was medical evaluation and treatment in response to suspected abuse, so the Confrontation Clause did not require suppression even though the child was incompetent to testify; the court of appeals therefore reversed and remanded.


State v. Glover, No. A17-1964, 2018 Minn. App. Unpub. LEXIS 372 (2018)