Child Victims and the Medical Diagnosis and Treatment Hearsay Exception

Child victim cases often present an array of challenging evidence issues. In a paper here I addressed many of those issues. One common question that folks contact me about is the admissibility of a child’s hearsay statements under Evidence Rule 803(4). This rule creates a hearsay exception for statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis and treatment. An analysis known as a Hinnant test applies when this hearsay exception is at issue. See generally State v. Hinnant, 351 N.C. 277 (2000). Consider this post your Hinnant primer. Rule 803(4) creates a hearsay exception for “[s]tatements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history, or past or present symptoms, pain, or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment.” N.C.R. Evid. 803(4). Testimony admitted under this exception “is considered inherently reliable because of the declarant’s motivation to tell the truth in order to receive proper treatment.” Hinnant, 351 N.C. at 286. In Hinnant, the North Carolina Supreme Court held that two inquiries must be satisfied for hearsay evidence to be admissible under this exception: “First, the trial court must determine that the declarant intended to make the statement at issue in order to obtain medical diagnosis or treatment. . . . Second, the trial court must determine that the declarant’s statements were reasonably pertinent to medical diagnosis or treatment.” Id. at 289. The satisfy the first prong, the proponent of the evidence “must affirmatively [...]