Opinion ID: 2206409
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Intent of Questioner vs. Intent of Declarant

Text: Regarding this second prong, the parties differ on whose perspectivewhose intentis dispositive. Defendant argues that a statement is testimonial if it is elicited for the primary purpose of obtaining evidence with which to prosecute the offender. In other words, defendant would have us look to the perspective, the intent, of the person eliciting the statement. The State, by contrast, urges us to focus exclusively on the perspective of the declarant. In the State's view, the objective circumstances at the time that a testimonial statement is given must be such that the declarant would reasonably expect that his statements might be used in future judicial proceedingsthat he would recognize that he is, in effect, bearing witness against the accused. Each approach has its difficulties. Defendant's exclusive focus on the intent of the listener raises the obvious problem of statements which were not elicited. For example, although in Crawford the Court described the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh as one of the most notorious instances of the type of abuse against which the Confrontation Clause was designed to defend ( Crawford, 541 U.S. at 44, 124 S.Ct. at 1360, 158 L.Ed.2d at 188), Davis acknowledged that Lord Cobham's letter against Raleigh was plainly not the result of sustained questioning (emphasis omitted) ( Davis, 547 U.S. at ___ n. 1, 126 S.Ct. at 2274 n. 1, 165 L.Ed.2d at 237 n. 1). The State's exclusive focus on the declarant's intent, on the other hand, could lend itself to abuse by the State, by increasing use of statements gathered without the declarant's knowledgefor instance undercover interviews of witnesses.