Opinion ID: 3189192
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Asserted confrontation clause violation

Text: Defendant contends that admitting statements Durbin‟s daughter Natasha made to an officer and to her grandmother on the night of the murders prejudicially violated his rights under the confrontation clause. Assuming, without deciding, that the confrontation clause applies to penalty phase evidence, we reject defendant‟s contention. As noted above, Durbin‟s daughter Natasha died from influenza nearly two years after Durbin was killed. At trial, Corporal Ciapessoni testified he was the first officer to arrive at Durbin‟s house on the night of the murders, and found Cindy Durbin in the kitchen with her three crying children. Natasha told Corporal 48 Ciapessoni she had been asleep in the living room and awoke to see two unfamiliar men in the kitchen. She heard one of the men say, “Juan, you disappointed us,” and then heard gunshots. She then observed two men leave the residence. Natasha thought she could identify the men. Durbin‟s children were later taken by their grandmother, Ginger Colwell, to Colwell‟s house. Natasha told Colwell, “[G]randmother, they were calling Juan a traitor.” Colwell asked if Chuck said anything. Natasha said he told her to run and hide. Natasha put a pillow over her two siblings, and “pulled the covers up so they wouldn‟t get hurt.” Natasha‟s statements to her grandmother “clearly were not made with the primary purpose of creating evidence for [defendant‟s] prosecution.” (Ohio v. Clark, supra, 576 U.S. at p. ___ [135 S.Ct. at p. 2181].) Hence they were not testimonial and, thus, were properly admitted. (Ibid.) Even assuming Corporal Ciapessoni‟s testimony was erroneously admitted, that error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Evidence of Natasha‟s statement to Corporal Ciapessoni was cumulative to her statement to her grandmother and to Cindy Durbin‟s guilt phase testimony that one of the attackers said “Juan was a traitor.”