Providence County Superior Court P2/12-1420A Netti C. Vogel
Associate Justice
For
State: Lauren S. Zurier Department of Attorney General
For
Defendant: Angela M. Yingling Office of the Public Defender
Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Flaherty, Robinson, and
Indeglia, JJ.
OPINION
Francis X. Flaherty, Associate Justice
The
defendant, Danielle LeFebvre, appeals from a judgment of
conviction after a jury found her guilty of first degree
child abuse, in violation of G.L. 1956 § 11-9-5.3. The
trial justice sentenced the defendant to twenty years'
imprisonment, with eighteen years to serve and the balance
suspended, with probation. Before this Court, the defendant
argues that the trial justice erred by requiring Sheila
Russell, a licensed clinical social worker, to testify about
statements the defendant made to her while seeking
mental-health treatment. The defendant claims that her
communications with Russell were privileged pursuant to the
Confidentiality of Health Care Information Act, G.L. 1956
chapter 37.3 of title 5 (CHCIA). A threshold, and ultimately
dispositive, issue is whether any privilege arising from that
statute is abrogated by G.L. 1956 § 40-11-11, which
nullifies "[t]he privileged quality of communication
between * * * any professional person and his or her patient
or client * * * in situations involving known or suspected
child abuse or neglect and [the privileged quality of
communications] shall not constitute grounds for * * *
failure to give or accept evidence in any judicial proceeding
relating to child abuse or neglect." After thoroughly
reviewing the record, and carefully considering the arguments
of the parties, we affirm the judgment of conviction.
I
Facts
and Travel
In the
fall of 2011, defendant lived in her mother's apartment
with her infant son, James, who was born on September 3,
2011.[1] This was a difficult time for her. She and
her mother, JoAnn LeFebvre, had a tense relationship;
defendant was averaging only two to five hours of sleep at
night, and baby James had become frustratingly
fussy.[2] James's father was absent from the
baby's life, and, although JoAnn would occasionally
babysit, the burden of child care fell mostly on defendant.
Life was stressful for defendant, and the impact of that
stress appears to have affected her relationship with her
son. According to JoAnn, defendant was experiencing
difficulty bonding with James. JoAnn did not observe the kind
of playfulness and affection that one would expect from a new
mother, and she observed that defendant was
"aggressive" with the baby and would sometimes yell
to vent her pent-up frustrations.[3]
On
October 19, 2011, defendant arrived at the emergency room of
Hasbro Children's Hospital with James, then almost seven
weeks old. The defendant told the attending physician that
the day before, she had been sitting on the edge of her bed
with James cradled against her shoulder, trying to lull him
to sleep for a quick nap, when she herself fell asleep. She
testified that she woke up sometime later to find James
crying on the floor by the bed, where he had fallen while she
slept. As she was consoling him, defendant claimed, she
noticed that his head was red, but she did not feel anything
out of the ordinary when she checked the back of his head,
and he calmed down to take a bottle. The defendant then
brought James to her grandmother's home for an overnight
visit.
The
next morning, defendant returned to work for the first time
since she had gone on maternity leave. While she was at work,
she received two phone calls from her grandmother, who had
noticed that James was not acting normally. The defendant
left work an hour early to check on James, and she knew
something was wrong as soon as she saw him. After returning
to her apartment to pack a diaper bag, she brought James to
the emergency room. The defendant told the attending
physician that her grandmother had reported that James
appeared listless, was not eating, had rapid eye movements,
and that his limbs were twitching. A head CT scan and a
skeletal survey of James's body revealed a fractured
skull, bleeding in and around his brain, and two fractured
ribs, which, based on how much they had healed, may have
occurred as late as the very afternoon James was admitted to
the hospital. Hospital staff, concerned that James's
injuries might be the result of abuse, referred James's
case to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families
(DCYF). The defendant was later charged by criminal
information with one count of first degree child abuse, in
violation of § 11-9-5.3(b)(1).
The
attending physician later testified that she did not believe
that any of the baby's injuries were consistent with the
type of short fall that had been described by defendant. To
the contrary, the attending physician testified that
James's rib fractures could not have been caused by a
fall from a bed, but rather were more consistent with someone
squeezing or compressing the infant's chest. The doctor
further opined that James's head injuries were consistent
with abusive head trauma, also known as "Shaken Baby
Syndrome."[4]
Before
trial, defendant's counsel, in connection with plea
negotiations, provided the state with medical records from
mental health treatment that defendant had sought at Butler
Hospital in the days following James's injuries. Included
in those records were the intake notes of Sheila Russell, a
licensed clinical social worker who had conducted an initial
psychiatric evaluation of defendant. That evaluation said, in
pertinent part, that "[defendant] doesn[']t remember
what she did or on h[o]w many occasions, but has enough
'fuzzy recollection' to know she did indeed cause the
harm. [R]emembers feeling 'enraged' at the baby and
'throwing him on the bed just to get away from
him.'" After the trial justice granted the
state's motion in limine to use those records
against defendant at trial, the state served a subpoena
duces tecum on Butler Hospital to produce copies of
Russell's records and to require her testimony. Over the
hospital's strenuous objection, the trial justice denied
Butler's motion to quash the subpoena, and she also
required Russell to testify about her notes during the
state's rebuttal case.[5]
Before
this Court, defendant argues that the trial justice erred
when she required Sheila Russell to testify about disclosures
defendant made to her during the intake interview, because,
defendant contends, her conversation with Russell was
privileged as a "confidential health care
communication[]" under § 5-37.3-6. The defendant
further argues that § 40-11-11 abrogates that privilege
only in certain Family Court proceedings but does not do so
in criminal cases.
II
Standard
of Review
"[W]e
review questions of statutory interpretation de
novo." State v. Hazard, 68 A.3d 479, 485
(R.I. 2013) (quoting Campbell v. State, 56 A.3d 448,
454 (R.I. 2012)). "In matters of statutory
interpretation our ultimate goal is to give effect to the
purpose of the act as intended by the Legislature."
Id. (quoting Alessi v. Bowen Court
Condominium, 44 A.3d 736, 740 (R.I. 2012)). "[W]hen
[the] statute expresses a clear and unambiguous meaning, the
task of interpretation is at an end and this [C]ourt will
apply the plain and ordinary meaning of the words set forth
in the statute." State v. Marsich, 10 A.3d 435,
440 (R.I. 2010) (quoting State v. Smith, 766 A.2d
913, 924 (R.I. 2001)). "[T]he Legislature is presumed to
have intended each word or provision of a statute to express
a significant meaning, and the [C]ourt ...