Opinion ID: 2363213
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did the Error Seriously Affect the Fairness, Integrity, or Public Reputation of the Proceedings?

Text: When the first three parts of Olano are satisfied, an appellate court must then determine whether the forfeited error `seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings' before it may exercise its discretion to correct the error. Johnson, 520 U.S. at 469-70, 117 S.Ct. 1544 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court answered that question in the negative in Johnson, id. at 470, 117 S.Ct. 1544, and we conclude that we must do the same in this case. In Johnson, the trial court failed to submit materiality, an essential element of the charged offense, to the jury, in violation of the defendant's Sixth Amendment jury trial right. The Supreme Court held that this constitutional error was plain and assumed arguendo that it affected the appellant's substantial rights. Nonetheless, because materiality was essentially uncontroverted at trial and the evidence supporting materiality was overwhelming, id., the Court found that the error did not satisfy the fourth requirement for reversal. No `miscarriage of justice' will result here if we do not notice the error, the Court stated, and we decline to do so. Id. The admission of crucial evidence in violation of the Confrontation Clause has been found to undermine the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings in other cases. See, e.g., Drayton, supra ; Bruno, supra ; United States v. Pugh, 405 F.3d 390, 403 (6th Cir.2005). The question must be answered in light of the specific facts of each case, however, and we cannot come to the same conclusion in this case. The following considerations, which serve to distinguish this case from the others cited, inform our judgment. As to the fairness of the proceeding, appellant was provided a copy of the DEA chemist's report, including the chemist's worksheet, prior to trial, and he was warned that it would be offered in evidence against him. He had a fair opportunity to investigate and challenge the chemist's report, and he could have subpoenaed and cross-examined the chemist if he doubted her findings, qualifications, or methodology. Yet appellant has never disputed the accuracy of the chemist's report; while appellant denied being the seller, he has never denied what was sold. Nor did appellant raise a valid objection to the admission of the report in evidence. Much like the element of materiality in Johnson, the chemist's report in this case is essentially uncontroverted. Having elected not to contest the identity of the cocaine mixture at his trial, appellant cannot claim that fairness requires that he nonetheless be given a chance to contest it now. Crawford certainly did not hold that the denial of the right of confrontation necessarily undermines the fairness of a criminal proceeding. As to the integrity of the proceeding (apart from its fairness to appellant), there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the chemist's report was unreliable. The other evidence at trial  notably, the circumstances of the sale itself, the ziplock packaging of the drugs, the physical appearance of the contents (a white rocky substance), the positive field test conducted by Officer Garner, and expert witness testimony concerning the modus operandi of drug dealing  strongly corroborated the chemist's identification. It would have come as quite a surprise if the ziplocks had turned out not to contain cocaine. And we cannot disregard the factors identified and relied upon by this court in Howard (and the courts of many other jurisdictions as well) that support the reliability of the chemist's report  the objective and routine nature of the testing, the use of a well-established chemical procedure, the duty of the chemist to be accurate, and the absence of any motive on the part of the chemist to falsify the results. Howard, 473 A.2d at 839. Crawford did not hold that confrontation is always necessary for reliable fact finding. See Lave v. Dretke, 444 F.3d 333, 337 (5th Cir.2006) ([T]he rule announced in Crawford does not assure greater accuracy because it bars admission of a statement to which it applies even when the statement is highly reliable.); Murillo v. Frank, 402 F.3d 786, 790 (7th Cir.2005) ([I]t would be a close question whether Crawford helps or hinders accurate decision making. . . . The point of Crawford is not that only live testimony is reliable, but that the Sixth Amendment gives the accused a right to insist on live testimony, whether that demand promotes or frustrates accuracy.). Lastly, given what we have said regarding the fairness of the procedure and the reliability of the evidence, it is difficult to see how the use of the DEA chemist's report at appellant's trial otherwise could be thought to have impugned the public reputation of the judicial proceeding. The chemist's report was admitted in accordance with the settled law at the time of trial. This is not a case in which either the prosecutor or the trial judge was derelict in any way. In view of the foregoing considerations, we see no basis to conclude that the fairness, integrity or public reputation of appellant's trial was undermined by the introduction of the chemist's report. No one could have thought so at the time of trial, and the Supreme Court's subsequent decision in Crawford does not alter that fact. We are satisfied, as the Supreme Court was in Johnson, that no miscarriage of justice will result in this case if we do not notice the error.