Opinion ID: 2513015
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Alberto's Statements

Text: Gabriel appeals the district court's decision to allow introduction of Alberto's recorded statements from his telephone call with his mother. Admission of this evidence, he argues, violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, as outlined by the Supreme Court precedents of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), and Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). Gabriel did not properly preserve his Crawford objection, so our review is for plain error only. See United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir.2001). Since Gabriel did preserve his Bruton objection at trial, we review the district court's determination under Bruton de novo. United States v. Vega-Molina, 407 F.3d 511, 519 (1st Cir.2005). The Supreme Court's decision in Crawford stands for the proposition that the Confrontation Clause bars admission of testimonial hearsay in a criminal case unless the declarant is unavailable and the accused has had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. United States v. Earle, 488 F.3d 537, 542 (1st Cir.2007) (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354). The parties agree that Alberto was unavailable for cross-examination, as he invoked his right not to testify. Thus, admissibility of Alberto's conversation would violate defendant Gabriel's Confrontation Clause rights unless the statements were either non-testimonial or not hearsay. Since Gabriel does not challenge whether or not Alberto's statements were hearsay, we turn to the question of whether they were testimonial. [14] The Supreme Court provides the following examples to guide a court's determination of whether an out-of-court statement is testimonial: Testimonial statements take the form of 1)  ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent; 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. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51-52, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, this Circuit has stated that, in determining whether a statement is testimonial, a court should consider whether an objectively reasonable person in [the declarant's] shoes would understand that the statement would be used in prosecuting [the defendant] at trial. United States v. Maher, 454 F.3d 13, 21 (1st Cir. 2006). Gabriel notes that Alberto was repeatedly warned that his telephone conversations were recorded. Furthermore, he was actually aware of this fact, and even stated in that conversation that he could not say much over the telephone. Thus, Gabriel argues, a reasonable person in Alberto's shoes would know that the conversation was being recorded, and would thus expect that anything he said could be used to prosecute him, making the statements testimonial pursuant to Maher. See id. We believe that Gabriel's analysis misses the mark, and that Alberto's statements were not made under circumstances that render them testimonial. Looking at the examples given by the Supreme Court in Crawford, it is plain that Alberto's statements to his mother were not solemn declarations made to government officials in circumstances that resemble the repudiated civil-law mode of interrogation, and thus cannot be treated as testimonial. United States v. Brito, 427 F.3d 53, 68 (1st Cir.2005) (Howard, J., concurring) (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354). He did not make the statements to a police officer, during the course of an interrogation, or in a structured setting designed to elicit responses that intended to be used to prosecute him. Rather, Alberto had a conversation with a close family member without any intention of assisting in his own prosecutionin fact, quite the opposite. Other courts have found accordingly in similar circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Manfre, 368 F.3d 832, 838 n. 1 (8th Cir.2004) ([Declarant's] comments were made to loved ones or acquaintances and are not the kind of memorialized, judicial-process-created evidence of which Crawford speaks.); Saechao v. Oregon, 249 Fed.Appx. 678 (9th Cir.2007) (unpublished opinion) (holding that jailhouse conversation over the phone with an acquaintance was not testimonial, as declarant did not have the purpose of supplying prosecution with evidence). Gabriel also challenges the admitted statements under Bruton. In Bruton, the Supreme Court held that, in a joint trial, a non-testifying defendant's confession that was powerfully incriminating against a co-defendant could not be admitted, as any limiting instruction would be inadequate to relieve the Confrontation Clause problems. 391 U.S. at 135, 88 S.Ct. 1620; Furr v. Brady, 440 F.3d 34, 37 (1st Cir.2006). However, as the companion opinion explains, the Bruton rule does not apply to non-testimonial hearsay statements. See Figueroa Cartagena, No. 08-2110. Since we have determined that the recorded conversation was non-testimonial, Bruton is not implicated. We therefore conclude that the recorded conversation was properly admitted.