State v. Aaron L. (concurring)
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****************************************************** The officially released date that appears near the beginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the officially released date appearing in the opinion. In no event will any such motions be accepted before the officially released date. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the electronic version of an opinion and the print version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest print version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears on the Commission on Official Legal Publications Electronic Bulletin Board Service and in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ****************************************************** STATE v. AARON L CONCURRENCE BORDEN, J., with whom ZARELLA, J., joins, concurring. I agree with and join the majority opinion in all respects. I write separately as to part I of the majority opinion, however, to highlight the point that, in a future case such as this one, in which we are asked to apply the residual exception to the hearsay rule to the statement of a very young child, this court would benefit greatly from some expert learning about how such children typically recall and relate what happens to them. I first reiterate that, on the basis of the applicable law and the facts of this case, the resolution of the admissibility of the victim s statement to her mother is properly resolved as coming within the parameters of the residual exception to the hearsay rule. Furthermore, this record does not contain, either by way of evidence presented to the trial court or by way of reference to any studies in scientific literature, any information about how reliable very young but verbal children may be. My concern, however, arises from the fact that the factors specified in Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805, 821 22, 110 S. Ct. 3139, 111 L. Ed. 2d 638 (1990), and adopted by this court in State v. Merriam, 264 Conn. 617, 635, 639 40, 835 A.2d 895 (2003), and applied in the present case, appear to be based, not on any scientific evidence about how very young children, at an age when they are just beginning to be verbal, perceive and relate things, but on notions of general experience and intuition. Those notions may well be perfectly accurate; but they also may not be accurate. Although I am a father and grandfather, I simply do not know whether what are regarded in the case law as hallmarks of reliability of young children s statements are valid. Some science may help to resolve those doubts. I do not think that such material is unavailable. Indeed, some of it apparently was in the record of the state proceedings in Idaho v. Wright, supra, 497 U.S. 813; see id. ( [n]oting that expert testimony and child psychology texts indicated that children are susceptible to suggestions and are therefore likely to be misled by leading questions, state court determined that child s statements were inadmissible under residual exception to hearsay rule). Perhaps the next time we are asked to determine whether a statement of a child of such a young age is reliable enough to be admitted without cross-examination, we will be able to do so on the basis of more than general notions of experience and our intuition.
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