State v. Manuel T.

Citations

• 337 Conn. 429

Syllabus

Convicted of risk of injury to a child, sexual assault in the first degree, sexual assault in the second degree, and sexual assault in the fourth degree in connection with his alleged sexual abuse of the victim, J, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming that the trial court's admission of a video recording of a forensic interview of J and exclusion of screenshots depicting two text messages purportedly sent by J to the defendant's niece, V, constituted harmful error. The Appellate Court upheld the defendant's conviction, concluding that neither evidentiary ruling was an abuse of the trial court's discretion. The Appellate Court specifically concluded that the statements that J made during the inter- view were admissible under the medical treatment exception to the hearsay rule and that V's testimony was insufficient to authenticate the text messages and that there was not sufficient additional corroboration of V's testimony. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. This court rejected the defendant's claim that it should overrule prior Appellate Court precedent and adopt a standard under which statements made by a minor child abuse victim during a forensic interview can be admitted under the medical treatment exception to the hearsay rule only if the victim's primary purpose in making those statements was to obtain a medical diagnosis or treatment. 2. The Appellate Court incorrectly determined that the trial court had not abused its discretion in excluding, for lack of authentication, the screens- hots of the text messages purportedly sent by J to V: the defendant established a prima facie case of authentication through V's testimony, and any doubts as to V's credibility or as to the source of the messages went to the weight, rather than to the admissibility, of the text messages; moreover, the exclusion of the text messages was not harmless because the state's case was not particularly strong insofar as there