Opinion ID: 1090514
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Crawford v. Washington Claims

Text: Franklin claims that certain hearsay statements admitted during the guilt and penalty phases of his trial violated his right to confront witnesses under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, [5] as explained in the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Franklin asserts that it was error for the trial court to allow a police detective to testify during the penalty phase about the injuries sustained by a previous victim when she was attacked by Franklin and struck on the head with a hammer. Over a defense objection that the detective was not qualified to testify about the extent of victim Alice Johnson's injuries, the detective testified that the doctor who treated Johnson at the hospital stated that pieces of Johnson's skull had been broken off by the hammer blows and were imbedded in her brain. Franklin also asserts that it was error to permit Officer Iozzi and truck driver Ellis to testify during the guilt phase about Lawley's statements concerning the shooting, including Lawley's description of the shooter and the vehicle driven by the shooter. Over a defense hearsay objection, the trial court ruled that Lawley's statements were admissible as an exception to the rule against hearsay testimony. On appeal, both parties seem to agree that the statements at issue fit under the excited utterance exception, which authorizes the admission of [a] statement or excited utterance relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition, notwithstanding the general prohibition against hearsay. § 90.803(2), Fla. Stat. (2005). Initially, the State contends that none of these Crawford claims were preserved for appellate review by a proper objection. Franklin filed pretrial motions to prohibit the State from using hearsay evidence at the penalty phase as provided in section 921.141(1), Florida Statutes (2005), [6] and to have the statute declared unconstitutional for violating his right to confront witnesses. The trial court denied these pretrial motions. Franklin also offered to stipulate to the aggravating factor of prior violent felony convictions in order to prevent the jury from hearing the details of his prior crimes. However, the court rejected this stipulation and permitted the State to present penalty phase testimony and evidence that related the details of Franklin's other crimes. While Franklin's objection to the detective's penalty phase testimony was not directed to its nature as hearsay or as a violation of his right to confront the witnesses against him, we conclude that he adequately preserved the issue through his pretrial motions. Section 90.104(1)(b), Florida Statutes, covering rulings on evidence, was amended in 2003 to add the following language: If the court has made a definitive ruling on the record admitting or excluding evidence, either at or before trial, a party need not renew an objection or offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal. See ch.2003-259, § 1, at 1298, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 90.104(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (2005)). Thus, Franklin was not required to renew his objection to the penalty phase evidence in order to preserve his confrontation claim for appellate review. The State also argues that Franklin's hearsay objection to the guilt phase testimony regarding Lawley's statements did not preserve any Crawford claim. We agree. Franklin's pretrial motion did not address any guilt phase confrontation issues. However, even if these guilt phase claims had been properly preserved, they would be without merit as explained below. In considering Confrontation Clause claims, we are guided by the following principles. The standard for determining whether the admission of a hearsay statement against a criminal defendant violates the right of confrontation was recently modified by the Supreme Court in Crawford. Before Crawford, the issue was controlled by Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), which held that a hearsay statement could be admitted in a criminal trial without violating the right of confrontation if it was shown that the declarant was unavailable and the out-of-court statement bore adequate indicia of reliability. This test focused on the reliability of the statement. As explained in Roberts, a statement had adequate indicia of reliability if it either fell within a firmly rooted hearsay exception or if it bore particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. Id. In Crawford, the Supreme Court dispensed with the Roberts reliability analysis for testimonial hearsay statements and held that the admission of a hearsay statement made by a declarant who does not testify at trial violates the Sixth Amendment if (1) the statement is testimonial, and (2) the declarant is unavailable and the defendant lacked a prior opportunity for cross-examination of the declarant. The Court emphasized that if testimonial evidence is at issue, 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. 1354. Only [testimonial] statements . . . cause the declarant to be a `witness' within the meaning of the Confrontation Clause. Davis v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 2273, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006). It is the testimonial character of the statement that separates it from other hearsay that, while subject to traditional limitations upon hearsay evidence, is not subject to the Confrontation Clause. Id. Thus, we must initially determine whether the statements at issue in the instant case were testimonial. While Crawford did not establish a precise definition of the term testimonial, the Supreme Court did provide some guidance, holding that, at a minimum, statements are testimonial if the declarant made them at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and [in] police interrogations. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Beyond this explicit guidance, the Supreme Court discussed three formulations of statements that might qualify as testimonial, namely: (1)  ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent  that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially; (2) extrajudicial statements . . . contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony or confessions; and (3) statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Id. at 51-52, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (quoting Brief for Petitioner at 23; White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 365, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Brief for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers at 3). Following Crawford, the Supreme Court has provided further guidance in determining when statements made in the course of police interrogations are testimonial. As the Supreme Court explained in Davis v. Washington , the distinction rests on the primary purpose of the interrogation. 126 S.Ct. at 2273-74. Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. Id. at 2273. In contrast, such out-of-court statements are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. Id. at 2273-74. Davis left open the question of whether and when statements made to someone other than law enforcement personnel are `testimonial.' Id. at 2274 n. 2. This category of statements bears upon at least one of Franklin's claims here, namely the admission of the statement Lawley made to his friend and coworker Ellis immediately after being shot. Most courts agree that a spontaneous statement to a friend or family member, such as Lawley's statement to Ellis, is not likely to be testimonial under Crawford. See, e.g., People v. Vigil, 127 P.3d 916, 927-28 (Colo. 2006) (holding that an excited utterance a child made to his father and his father's friend immediately after a sexual assault was not testimonial); State v. Rivera, 268 Conn. 351, 844 A.2d 191, 205 (2004) (holding that statement declarant made in confidence and on his own initiative to a close family member was not testimonial); Demons v. State, 277 Ga. 724, 595 S.E.2d 76, 80 (2004) (holding that an excited utterance made to a friend was not testimonial); Woods v. State, 152 S.W.3d 105, 114 (Tex. Crim.App.2004) (holding that a codefendant's spontaneous statements to two different third-party acquaintances were not testimonial because they were casual, spontaneous street corner statements), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 1050, 125 S.Ct. 2295, 161 L.Ed.2d 1092 (2005); State v. Manuel, 281 Wis.2d 554, 697 N.W.2d 811, 824 (2005) (holding that a statement made by a declarant to his girlfriend in their apartment implicating the defendant in a murder was not testimonial). In fact the Supreme Court even recognized that a person who makes a casual remark to an acquaintance does not bear testimony in the sense that [a]n accuser who makes a formal statement to government officers does. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354; see also United States v. Manfre, 368 F.3d 832, 838 n. 1 (8th Cir.2004) (noting comments made to loved ones or acquaintances . . . are not the kind of memorialized, judicial-process-created evidence of which Crawford speaks). In the instant case, the circumstances surrounding Lawley's statements to Ellis indicate that the statements were not testimonial. Lawley spontaneously made the statements to his friend. Lawley pounded on Ellis's truck in order to summon assistance and to relay to his friend what had happened to him. Additionally, Lawley made these statements in the midst of a medical emergency: he had just been shot and was struggling for breath. Thus, even if this claim had been preserved by a proper objection, Franklin would not be entitled to relief because Lawley's excited utterances to his friend Ellis were not testimonial. The other two statements that Franklin claims as error were made to police officers during the course of police questioning in a criminal investigation. In the wake of Crawford, the courts have reached varying conclusions as to the testimonial nature of such statements. Compare Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 445 Mass. 1, 833 N.E.2d 549, 555 (2005) (holding that the term interrogation must be understood expansively to mean all law enforcement questioning related to the investigation or prosecution of a crime), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 2980, 165 L.Ed.2d 990 (2006), and cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 2982, 165 L.Ed.2d 989 (2006), with People v. King, 121 P.3d 234, 240 (Colo.Ct.App.2005) (holding that where the statements were made to police in a noncustodial setting, without indicia of formality, and while the victim was under considerable pain and distress, the statements could not be viewed by any reasonable person as being made with the expectation that they would be used prosecutorially and thus were nontestimonial), cert. denied, No. 05SC179, 2005 WL 3073374 (Colo. Oct 17, 2005). In Davis, the Supreme Court recently addressed the testimonial status of several statements made by declarants in response to police interrogations. Davis actually involved two separate cases decided by the Washington and Indiana Supreme Courts, State v. Davis, 154 Wash.2d 291, 111 P.3d 844 (2005), and Hammon v. State, 829 N.E.2d 444 (Ind.2005). See Davis v. Washington, 126 S.Ct. at 2270-73. In both cases, the trial courts had admitted statements made by victims of domestic battery and the defendants argued that the admission of the statements, in the absence of the declarant's testimony at trial, violated their Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. In Davis, the relevant statements were made to a 911 emergency operator as the declarant was actually being attacked by the defendant. The declarant identified Davis as the assailant. In Hammon, the relevant statements were made to police officers who had responded to a domestic dispute call. The declarant recounted to the police the details of a previous attack by the defendant. The Supreme Court concluded that the statements made during the 911 call in Davis were nontestimonial, while the statements to the police officers in Hammon were testimonial. As explained by the Supreme Court, the distinction rests on the primary purpose of the interrogation in each instance. Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2273-74. In Davis, the questioning by the 911 operator was to enable the responding officers to meet an ongoing emergency. The Supreme Court noted the following circumstances in Davis: the declarant was speaking about events as they were actually happening; the declarant was facing an ongoing emergency and made the 911 call in order to seek help against a bona fide physical threat; the elicited statements were crucial to resolving the ongoing emergency (i.e., the 911 operator asked who was attacking the caller, whether the attacker was using a weapon, and whether the attacker had been drinking); and the declarant was giving frantic answers over the phone in the midst of hectic events and an unsafe environment. 126 S.Ct. at 2276-77. In contrast, the Supreme Court concluded that the primary purpose of the interrogation in Hammon was to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court noted very different circumstances surrounding the interrogation in Hammon: there was no emergency in progress when the officers arrived; the declarant was alone on the front porch and told the officers that she was fine and in no immediate danger; the officer questioned the declarant in a separate room about what had happened; the declarant delivered a narrative of past events removed in time from the danger she described; and the officer asked the declarant to execute a written affidavit in order to establish the events that had occurred previously. The Supreme Court described these statements in Hammon as an obvious substitute for live testimony, because they do precisely what a witness does on direct examination; they are inherently testimonial. 126 S.Ct. at 2278. Applying the reasoning of Davis to the instant case, we conclude that the victim's statements to the responding officer that were introduced during the guilt phase of trial were not testimonial in nature. [7] The circumstances of the officer's questioning indicate that its primary purpose was to assist in an ongoing emergency. Lawley was under considerable pain and distress and was having difficulty breathing when he was responding to the officer's questions. These statements were made shortly after Lawley had been shot and before emergency personnel had even arrived on the scene. There were no indicia of formality in this questioning by the officer. As to the penalty phase evidence claim, we conclude that the physician's statements to the police detective about an earlier victim's injuries were testimonial under the standards laid out in Davis. These statements were made by the doctor in response to questioning by a detective who was investigating an already completed crime. There was no ongoing emergency that needed to be resolved. The purpose of the detective's questioning was inherently testimonial. Thus, it was error to admit this testimony over defense objection. However, a confrontation error is subject to harmless error analysis. See United States v. McClain, 377 F.3d 219, 222 (2d Cir.2004) (It is well established that violations of the Confrontation Clause, if preserved for appellate review, are subject to harmless error review . . . and Crawford does not suggest otherwise.). Essentially the same information that the detective related about Johnson's injuries was presented through Johnson's own testimony. She stated that she had been independent and involved in community affairs before Franklin hit her on the head with a hammer, but now she is unable to live on her own, unable to drive her car, confined to a wheelchair, and unable to participate in community events. Thus, we conclude that there is no reasonable possibility that any error in admitting the doctor's hearsay statements about Johnson's injuries contributed to the death sentence recommended by the jury. See State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129, 1138 (Fla.1986). For the reasons explained above, we conclude that Franklin is not entitled to relief on his Crawford claims, either because the claims were not preserved for appellate review or are without merit.