Taylor v. State

How later courts described this case

• explaining that for cases in which person is “on the physician’s cold examination table” for diagnosis or treatment, it is “natural to presume that adults, and even children of a sufficient age or apparent maturity, will have an implicit awareness that the doctor’s questions are designed to elicit accurate information and that veracity will serve their best interest” and that courts typically review record “not for evidence of such an awareness, but for any evidence that would negate such an awareness, even while recognizing that the burden is on the proponent . . . to show that the . . . exception applies”
• concluding ultimately that hearsay exception in Rule 3 803(4) did not apply to victim’s statements made to counselor during session conducted several months after offense as part of victim’s ongoing, long-term therapy and recognizing that “reclining on a therapist’s or psychiatrist’s couch is not quite the same as sitting in the emergency room in the immediate aftermath of an injury or on the physician’s cold examination table in the interest of diagnosing and curing some exigent disease or ailment”
• recognizing “tacit presumption” that children of a sufficient age or apparent maturity will have an implicit awareness that a medical professional’s questions are designed to elicit accurate information and that veracity will serve their best interest, and reviewing courts “assay the record, not for evidence of such an awareness, but for any evidence that would negate such an awareness.”
• recognizing that obtaining the identity of the individual perpetrating an assault upon a child may be pertinent because it is important for a physician to discover the extent of the child’s emotional injuries particularly when the perpetrator may be a family or household member and it is important to remove the child from the abusive environment

Written by the judges who cited it.