[Full disclosure: I make no secret of the fact that I have yet to encounter a custody evaluation conducted in Utah that is not pseudo-scientific, incompletely and incompetently documented, and containing findings and recommendations that are so subjective and equivocal as to be evidentially unreliable.]
There is generally, though not universally, an informal institutional reluctance:
1) on the part of Utah district courts to interview the minor children who are the subject of child custody dispute cases.
2) on the part of Utah child custody evaluators (that appears to me to be universal among them) to make recordings (whether audio or sound-and-visual) of the minor child interviews they conduct.
This reluctance is based on two beliefs: that by merely knowing that their interviews are being recorded minor children: 1) are inherently traumatized; and b) are more likely to respond falsely to the questions posed to them in the interview. If either or both of these beliefs has/have ever been scientifically established as valid in the custody evaluator and/or judge/commissioner interview context, I can find no objectively verifiable proof of it. Have you?
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277