Opinion ID: 2020324
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Crawford, Davis, and Stechly

Text: In November 2002, when respondent's adjudication trial took place, the juvenile court judge employed section 115-10 to find Von's out-of-court statements to his mother, Officer Cure, and Jackie Weber admissible. Section 115-10 is an Illinois statutory provision which, when enacted by our legislature, was tailored to comport with sixth amendment confrontation clause requirements (U.S. Const., amend. VI) as delineated in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). See People v. Stechly, 225 Ill.2d 246, 264, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d 333 (2007). Under Roberts, it was not a violation of the sixth amendment confrontation clause to admit out-of-court hearsay statements into evidence as long as the statements were found to be reliable, either because the evidence fell within a firmly rooted hearsay exception or because there were other particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539, 65 L.Ed.2d at 608. In 2004, while respondent's appeal was pending in the appellate court, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roberts and devised a fundamentally new procedure for analyzing confrontation clause claims. See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). In Crawford, the defendant claimed that his sixth amendment confrontation rights had been violated because his wife's tape-recorded statement to police was admitted into evidence at defendant's trial although she did not testify at trial due to defendant's invocation of the spousal privilege. After engaging in a lengthy examination of the historical underpinnings of the confrontation right guaranteed by the sixth amendment, the Court concluded that when an out-of-court statement is testimonial in nature the only indicium of reliability sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68-69, 124 S.Ct. at 1374, 158 L.Ed.2d at 203. Thus, the Court held that testimonial out-of-court statements may be admitted as evidence at trial only if the declarant testifies or the declarant is unavailable and the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53-54, 124 S.Ct. at 1365-66, 158 L.Ed.2d at 194. The Court explained: Where testimonial statements are involved, we do not think the Framers meant to leave the Sixth Amendment's protection to the vagaries of the rules of evidence, much less to amorphous notions of `reliability.' Certainly none of the authorities discussed above acknowledges any general reliability exception to the common-law rule. Admitting statements deemed reliable by a judge is fundamentally at odds with the right of confrontation. To be sure, the Clause's ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. The Clause thus reflects a judgment, not only about the desirability of reliable evidence (a point on which there could be little dissent), but about how reliability can best be determined. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370, 158 L.Ed.2d at 199. The Court then concluded, [w]here nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers' design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay lawas does Roberts, and as would an approach that exempted such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374, 158 L.Ed.2d at 203. Although the Crawford Court held that sixth amendment protections turned on whether or not the out-of-court statements sought to be admitted are testimonial, the Court did not attempt to define what it meant by testimonial hearsay. It held, however, that, at a minimum, it must include statements made in the course of police interrogation, as well as statements that are the result of other types of formal questioningsuch as testimony given at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trialwhere there was no opportunity for defendant to cross-examine. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374, 158 L.Ed.2d at 203. As noted above, in the case at bar the appellate court relied on Crawford to reverse respondent's adjudication, finding that Von's out-of-court statement to Officer Cure and his videotaped statement to Weber were testimonial and, therefore, respondent's sixth amendment confrontation rights were violated by their admission. The State timely filed a petition for leave to appeal from the appellate court's judgment. Initially, we held the State's petition because we already had before us a factually similar case, People v. Stechly, No. 1-01-2869, 343 Ill.App.3d 1294, 305 Ill.Dec. 887, 856 N.E.2d 692 (2003) (unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23), which we believed might resolve the issues raised in the case at bar. While Stechly was before us, the United States Supreme Court decided Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006), which provided additional insight into what the Court meant by testimonial statements. In Davis, the Court considered whether statements made to law enforcement personnel in two separate cases were testimonial and, thus, subject to the requirements of the sixth amendment confrontation clause. The first case involved statements made during a tape-recorded call to a 911 emergency operator and the second case involved statements made by the defendant's wife to police officers at the scene of a domestic battery after the altercation had ended. In both cases the statements were held to be nontestimonial and admitted into evidence although the declarant did not testify at trial. On review, the Court held that the statements made to police officers at the scene of the domestic altercation were testimonial, but that the statements made on the 911 tape recording were not. The distinction was not based on the 911 operator's status because the Court assumed that the 911 operator was an agent of the police. Rather, the Court explained that a statement to law enforcement personnel will be deemed nontestimonial if the circumstances objectively indicate that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to gather information to meet an ongoing emergency. On the other hand, statements to law enforcement will be deemed testimonial if circumstances objectively indicate there is no ongoing emergency and the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events to identify or convict the perpetrator. Davis, 547 U.S. at 826-30, 126 S.Ct. at 2276, 165 L.Ed.2d at 239-40. With the benefit of both the Crawford and Davis opinions, this court filed its decision in People v. Stechly, 225 Ill.2d 246, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d 333 (2007). In Stechly, the defendant challenged his convictions for predatory sexual assault of a child and aggravated criminal sexual assault. He claimed that, pursuant to Crawford, his sixth amendment confrontation rights had been violated by the admission of out-of-court statements the unavailable witness, five-year-old M.M., had made to three persons: Joan G., M.M.'s mother; Ann Grote, a clinical specialist and head of the child-abuse team at the hospital where M.M. was taken for examination; and Perry Yates, the social worker at the school where M.M. attended kindergarten. In a plurality decision, Stechly's convictions were reversed and the matter remanded to the circuit court with directions that a hearing be held on the issue of forfeiture by wrongdoing. Applying Crawford to the defendant's confrontation clause claim, we first looked at the threshold issue, i.e., whether the out-of-court statements were testimonial. Six justices agreed that M.M.'s statements to her mother were nontestimonial and that her statements to Grote and Yates were testimonial. However, three of the six justices (Justices Freeman, Fitzgerald and Burke) held that admission of the testimonial statements could not be considered harmless error and that reversal was required, while the other three justices (Chief Justice Thomas and Justices Garman and Karmeier) dissented from the reversal, holding that the admission of the testimonial hearsay did not amount to reversible error in light of the overwhelming evidence against defendant that was properly admitted. Stechly, 225 Ill.2d at 330, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d 333 (Thomas, C.J., dissenting, joined by Karmeier, J.). Justice Kilbride agreed that reversal was required, but reached that conclusion for reasons that were different from those expressed by the plurality. Justice Kilbride held that M.M.'s statements should have been excluded pursuant to section 115-10 because the evidence did not adequately show that M.M. was unavailable to testify. Also, employing an analysis that did not take into consideration the age of the child-declarant, Justice Kilbride found that all of M.M.'s statements, including those made to her mother, were testimonial. After we filed our decision in Stechly, we granted the State's petition for leave to appeal in the case at bar. Crawford, Davis and Stechly provide us with an understanding of the current parameters of the confrontation clause guarantee. Keeping them in mind, we now turn to the case at bar.