CornerHouse Forensic Interviews in Minnesota Child Sexual Abuse Cases

What a CornerHouse Interview Is

CornerHouse is a child abuse evaluation and training center founded in Minneapolis. The forensic interview protocol it developed, historically known by the acronym RATAC — Rapport, Anatomy identification, Touch inquiry, Abuse scenario, and Closure — became one of the most widely used forensic interview models in the country. In Minnesota, a child who is the subject of an abuse allegation is commonly interviewed using this protocol (or a closely related one) by a trained forensic interviewer.

The interview is recorded and typically takes place at a Children's Advocacy Center, where a multidisciplinary team is involved: the interviewer speaks with the child while investigators and prosecutors often observe, sometimes by closed-circuit video. The goal, as designed, is to obtain the child's account in a developmentally appropriate, non-leading way — a single careful interview rather than repeated questioning by police, parents, and others.

Why This Matters So Much in Minnesota

Two features of Minnesota law make the forensic interview unusually central:

• No corroboration is required. Under Minn. Stat. § 609.347, subd. 1, a complainant's testimony need not be corroborated. In a child case, that often means the recorded interview and the child's account are the core of the state's case, without physical evidence or other witnesses.
• The interview shapes everything that follows. The child's recorded statement frequently drives the charging decision, the investigation, and the trial narrative. If the account was influenced by how it was elicited, that influence can carry through the entire case.

Because so much can rest on a single interview, how that interview was conducted is itself a legitimate and important subject of examination. This is not about attacking a child. It is about whether accepted forensic-interview practices were followed, because the reliability of the resulting account depends on them.

How the Reliability of a Forensic Interview Is Examined

Forensic-interview science is a well-developed field, and researchers have documented that children — particularly young children — can be susceptible to suggestion depending on how they are questioned. The recognized grounds on which the reliability of a forensic interview is professionally evaluated include:

• Leading or suggestive questioning. Whether the interviewer used open-ended prompts that let the child narrate, or leading questions that suggested answers.
• Repeated or prior questioning. Whether the child had already been questioned multiple times — by parents, police, or others — before the forensic interview, which can shape or contaminate the account.
• Interviewer assumptions. Whether the interviewer approached the interview with a fixed belief that abuse occurred, which research links to more suggestive technique.
• Protocol adherence. Whether the interviewer actually followed the structure and best practices the protocol calls for, or departed from them.
• Outside influence and contamination. Whether the child was exposed to statements, rewards, or pressure from adults before or between interviews.
• Developmental factors. Whether questions were appropriate to the child's age, memory, attention span, and ability to distinguish concrete from abstract concepts.
• The recording itself. Whether the full interview was recorded, so that the technique can actually be evaluated rather than summarized second-hand.

Because the recording preserves exactly how the interview was conducted, careful review of it — often with a qualified forensic-interview or child-psychology expert — is central to evaluating the reliability of the account. Where accepted practices were not followed, that can be raised through the ordinary tools of a criminal case: cross-examination, expert testimony, and, where appropriate, pretrial motions.

What This Is Not

Examining a forensic interview is not about discrediting a child or putting a child "on trial." It is about a basic principle of criminal law: when the state's case depends heavily on one recorded account, the manner in which that account was obtained is a fair and necessary subject of scrutiny. A reliable interview stands up to review; the point of review is to test reliability, not to attack the witness.

Why This Calls for Experienced Counsel

Evaluating a forensic interview requires knowing what accepted practice looks like, being able to spot departures from it, and understanding how to present those issues through cross-examination, experts, and motions. Combined with Minnesota's no-corroboration rule and the other special evidence rules that govern these cases, this is a large part of why a child sexual abuse allegation calls for a lawyer who handles them.

Key Terms

• CornerHouse / RATAC: The Minnesota-developed forensic interview protocol widely used to interview children who allege abuse.
• Forensic interview: A structured, recorded interview of a child conducted by a trained interviewer.
• Children's Advocacy Center (CAC): The facility where forensic interviews are conducted, with a multidisciplinary team.
• Suggestibility: The documented tendency of children to be influenced by how questions are asked.
• Contamination: Outside influence on a child's account before or between interviews.