Idaho

Idaho Code § 16-1605 — Idaho mandatory-reporting statute

Clergy named as mandatory reporter?: No
Confessional exemption?: Yes

Statute: Idaho Code § 16-1605
Clergy named: All-person
Pending: —

Idaho requires any person to report suspected child abuse, then carves out one specific exception: a duly ordained minister of religion, for a confession or confidential communication made in his ecclesiastical capacity (§ 16-1605(3)). It is the only exception in the reporting statute, but it is not the only protection: in court, a separate religious privilege in Idaho Rule of Evidence 505 keeps the same communication from being testified about, and it reaches beyond a formal confession to any confidential talk with a spiritual adviser. Because that courtroom privilege lives in a Supreme Court rule, the Legislature cannot close it by statute alone. This is exactly the kind of state-level reform UCO is pushing for in every state.

Section 01What needs to change

What needs to change in Idaho.

Clergy carveout codified in § 16-1605(3)
Idaho Code § 16-1605(3) disapplies the reporting duty to a duly ordained minister of religion for a confession or confidential communication made in his ecclesiastical capacity when three conditions hold: the church is a 501(c)(3) organization, the communication was made directly to the minister, and the church treats the communication as inviolate by canon law or church doctrine. Even though § 16-1605(1) is an all-person reporting mandate, clergy hearing confessions are statutorily excused.
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Privilege preserved: § 9-203(3) is not abrogated for child-abuse cases
Idaho Code § 9-203 abrogates the spousal privilege for cases of physical injury to a minor child caused by parental abuse or neglect, and qualifies the physician-patient privilege in cases of physical injury to a child, but contains no parallel abrogation of the clergy-penitent privilege in subsection (3). Unlike the spousal, physician, and parent-child privileges elsewhere in § 9-203, which the Legislature expressly abrogates for child abuse, subsection (3) carries no such exception. This statutory privilege is not the one that controls in court, though: as the next note explains, that is a Supreme Court rule.
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The courtroom privilege is a Supreme Court rule, changed through the Court's rulemaking
In an Idaho courtroom the operative clergy-penitent privilege is Idaho Rule of Evidence 505, a rule of the Idaho Supreme Court, not the statute at § 9-203(3). Idaho Rule of Evidence 501 recognizes only privileges grounded in the constitution, a statute implementing a constitutional right, or a Supreme Court rule, so a bare statute does not create a testimonial privilege. Rule 505 is broader than § 9-203(3), reaching any confidential communication to a spiritual adviser rather than only a formal confession. Because the privilege that shields testimony lives in a Supreme Court rule, changing it runs through the Court's own rulemaking rather than an ordinary repeal statute: under Idaho Code § 1-213 the Legislature reviews court rules and advises the Court of conflicts by resolution, it does not override a rule by statute. Whether a statute could reach Rule 505 indirectly is unsettled, which is why a complete reform pursues both a rule change and a statute.
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Reform-gap pattern: amendments that never touch the clergy privilege
An Associated Press review covering roughly the past decade found that Idaho enacted three amendments to its mandatory-reporting rules without any of them seeking to eliminate the clergy-penitent privilege.
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Enforcement gap: the 2013 Boise case
In 2013, a former Boise police officer turned himself in for abusing children, something he had reported to 15 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, none of whom notified authorities. Prosecutors declined to file charges against the church, citing Idaho's clergy-penitent privilege law. The leading documented Idaho example of the carveout in practice.
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Section 02What's needed

What it takes to close the gap.

From Idaho's law as it stands today to the standard UCO is working toward, every adult who learns a child is being harmed has to report it:

Idaho Code § 16-1605 imposes a reporting duty on any person who suspects a child is being abused, covering clergy like every other adult. The problem is the next one: § 16-1605(3) carves clergy back out when the disclosure comes through a confession or confidential ecclesiastical communication. Lawmakers reopened § 16-1605 as recently as 2018 for unrelated foster-care changes and did not amend the carveout, and an AP review found three amendments to Idaho's reporting rules over the past decade, none of which sought to eliminate the privilege. Reform takes a three-part change, because closing the reporting carveout alone leaves the courtroom privilege standing. First, repeal § 16-1605(3) outright, along with the now-orphaned definition in § 16-1605(2), so clergy carry the same all-person reporting duty, and the same § 16-1605(4) misdemeanor, as every other adult. Lawmakers should not be asked merely to 'limit' subsection (3): its three conditions are cumulative requirements that keep the carveout narrow, so striking any one of them would widen the loophole rather than close it. Second, because the shield a prosecutor runs into is the courtroom privilege, petition the Idaho Supreme Court to add a child-abuse exception to Idaho Rule of Evidence 505. Under Idaho Rule of Evidence 501 the privilege that governs testimony comes from the Rules of Evidence, not from a bare statute, so this is the decisive courtroom step, one that runs through the Court's rulemaking rather than an ordinary statute (Idaho Code § 1-213 gives the Legislature review-and-advise power over court rules, not the power to override them by statute); Rule 505 is also broader than the statutory privilege at § 9-203(3), which reaches only a formal confession made in the course of church discipline, while Rule 505 covers any confidential communication to a spiritual adviser. Third, amend the statutory clergy-penitent privilege at § 9-203(3) to add the child-abuse abrogation the Legislature already wrote into the spousal, physician, and parent-child privileges in the same section, so the one relational privilege it left untouched no longer stands as a separate statutory shield. Without the Rule 505 change the new duty is largely unenforceable, because proving a minister failed to report would require testimony about the very confession the courtroom privilege protects.

Section 03How you can help

Concrete ways to support reform in Idaho.

Donate

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Donations fund Idaho-focused research and statewide coalition outreach in a state where no reform bill has yet taken on the clergy exception.

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Section 04Timeline

How Idaho got here.

1976
Idaho's child-abuse reporting statute enacted
The reporting duty was first added in 1976; it was later redesignated into the current § 16-1605 numbering in 2005.
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2018
Statute amended; clergy carveout left intact
The 2018 amendment (Idaho Session Laws ch. 287, from S1341) reopened § 16-1605 to add a departmental-investigation trigger for homes with an adult previously convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct or felony injury to a child. It was a foster-care oversight bill. The three-prong clergy carveout in subsection (3) already existed at the time and was left untouched.
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Section 05Background

Public-record sources UCO is tracking.

Always verify against the underlying statute or filing before quoting.

Idaho State Legislature· current text 2026
Idaho Code § 16-1605 — Reporting of abuse, abandonment or neglect
Canonical statutory text. Subsection (1) imposes the duty on enumerated professionals 'or other person' (the all-person catch-all); subsection (3) carves out the clergy confession exception; subsection (4) makes failure to report a misdemeanor.
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Idaho State Legislature· current text 2026
Idaho Code § 9-203 — Confidential relations and communications
Idaho's testimonial-privilege statute. Subsection (3) recognizes the clergy-penitent privilege and is not abrogated for child-abuse matters, confirming the privilege-preserved posture.
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children's Bureau / Child Welfare Information Gateway· 2023
Clergy as Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect (State Statutes Current Through May 2023)
Federal HHS classification placing Idaho among the 'any person' reporting states, with the privilege granted but limited to pastoral communications. The publication carries no statutory citations; it corroborates the classification only.
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Northwest Public Broadcasting / Associated Press· September 29, 2022
33 States, Including Washington, Idaho & Oregon, Exempt Clergy From Reporting Abuse
AP investigation establishing the action-needed context: three Idaho amendments over the prior decade, none seeking to eliminate the clergy-penitent privilege.
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Idaho State Legislature· 2018
S1341 (2018), Child Protective Act — foster-care oversight
Official bill page for the act enrolled as Idaho Session Laws ch. 287. It amended § 16-1605 to add a departmental-investigation trigger for homes with an adult previously convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct or felony injury to a child. Substantiates that the most recent amendment to the section was foster-care oversight and did not reach the clergy carveout in subsection (3).
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Idaho Supreme Court· current text 2026
Idaho Rules of Evidence 501 and 505
Rule 501 recognizes privileges only from the constitution, a statute implementing a constitutional right, or a Supreme Court rule; Rule 505 is the religious privilege, broader than the statutory clergy privilege at § 9-203(3). Substantiates that the clergy privilege that governs courtroom testimony is a Supreme Court rule rather than a statute.
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Idaho State Legislature· current text 2026
Idaho Code § 1-213: Rules of court and legislative review
The Idaho Supreme Court prescribes the rules of practice, procedure, and evidence; the Legislature may review court rules and, on finding a conflict with the Idaho Code or an abridgment of substantive rights, advise the Court by house or senate resolution. Substantiates that a change to Rule 505 runs through the Court's rulemaking rather than an ordinary override statute.
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Other states

Last reviewed July 22, 2026 · by Unheard Child Org research teamHow we track this