Opinion ID: 1785298
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Victim's Statement to Police

Text: Her also argues that Vangs statement to police after the March 2004 assault was testimonial. In Davis, the Supreme Court adopted a primary purpose test to determine whether a statement made during a police interrogation is testimonial and thus subject to Confrontation Clause restrictions under Crawford. 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224. The Davis test provides that statements are nontestimonial when circumstances objectively indicate that the primary purpose of the questioning is to enable police to assist in an ongoing emergency, but are testimonial when the primary purpose is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. Id. at 2273-74. The essential question is whether, when examined objectively, police sought to determine what was happening, rather than what had happened. See State v. Warsame, 735 N.W.2d 684, 691 (Minn.2007) (citing Hammon, 126 S.Ct. at 2278). The concurrence argues that the Davis Court's emphasis on primary purpose indicates that inquiries meant to orient the police with a situation are not per se testimonial, even when no emergency exists and that [w]ithout making an initial inquiry into what happened, police officers in the field will be simply unable to determine whether, in fact, there is an ongoing emergency and how to respond to the situation at hand. In essence, the concurrence would hold that because initial police inquiries are designed to determine if an emergency is ongoing, they are always nontestimonial. But the Supreme Court rejected just such a per se rule. In Hammon v. State , the Indiana Supreme Court had employed the analysis the concurrence posits. 829 N.E.2d 444, 453 (Ind.2005) (Responses to initial inquiries [by officers] at a crime scene are typically not `testimonial.'). The Supreme Court expressly rejected such a rule and the implication that virtually any `initial inquiries' at the crime scene will not be testimonial. Hammon, 126 S.Ct. at 2279. But the Court [did] not hold the oppositethat no questions at the scene will yield nontestimonial answers. Id. The Court said that particularly in domestic dispute situations [o]fficers called to investigate    need to know whom they are dealing with in order to assess the situation, the threat to their own safety, and possible danger to the potential victim. Id. (quoting Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty., 542 U.S. 177, 186, 124 S.Ct. 2451, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004)) (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). The Court went on to say that [s]uch exigencies may often mean that `initial inquiries' produce nontestimonial statements, but where statements are neither a cry for help nor the provision of information enabling officers immediately to end a threatening situation, the fact that they were given at an alleged crime scene and were `initial inquiries' is immaterial. Id. (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52 n. 3, 124 S.Ct. 1354). Consistent with the Court's guidance, our rule of law is not that initial inquiries at the scene are always testimonial or always nontestimonial. Rather, as the Court counseled, the question is to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Our post- Davis precedent confirms that we follow this case-by-case approach in examining whether statements made to police are testimonial or whether the statements are nontestimonial because they relate to an ongoing emergency. See State v. Wright, 726 N.W.2d 464, 475-76 (Minn. 2007); Warsame, 735 N.W.2d at 691-92. In Wright, the assailant pointed a gun at his live-in girlfriend and her sister before leaving the couple's apartment. 726 N.W.2d at 470. The girlfriend called 911, told the operator how she had been threatened, described the assailant in response to operator questioning, and then asked her sister to speak with the operator after police arrived at the apartment. Id. at 467-68. The operator determined where the women were in the building and told the sister that police had found Wright and were following him. Id. at 468. The operator then learned that Wright was in police custody and informed the sister of that fact. Id. In response to the sister's questions and concerns, the operator comforted her and assured her that the situation was under control. Id. Following Wright's arrest, police officers interviewed the women in the apartment. Id. at 469. We concluded that the entire 911 call was nontestimonial, but that the police interviews at the scene were testimonial because the emergency ended when police took Wright into custody. Id. at 476. In Warsame, police responding to a 911 call encountered the victim of a domestic assault walking down the street to the police station. 735 N.W.2d at 687. Before police were able to get out of the squad car or speak to the woman, she spontaneously said that her boyfriend just beat [her] up. Id. An officer determined the woman was associated with the 911 call to which he was responding, saw a large fresh bump on her forehead, and observed her to be wobbly and potentially faint. Id. He retrieved a medical bag from his vehicle, checked her injuries, and administered first aid. Id. As he tended to her injuries, the officer asked the victim an open-ended what happened question, which elicited a lengthy statement from the victim describing the assault. Id. After describing how her boyfriend hit and choked her, the victim told police that her boyfriend threatened to kill her while wielding a knife and that she feared for her life. Id. The officer called an ambulance and during the wait learned more information from the victim. Id. She said that she was pregnant and that after the assault her boyfriend left in her vehicle. Id. Once the paramedics arrived, the officer entered the victim's home and spoke with her sister. Id. at 688. He learned that during the assault the victim's sister attempted to grab the suspect's knife, was cut, and passed out from the injury. Id. We concluded that there were three ongoing emergencies in Warsame: the victim's medical condition, the defendant's flight, and the victim's sister's injury. Id. at 695. Accordingly, we held that statements made before these emergencies ended were nontestimonial. Id. at 696. We analyzed four objective factors in Wright and Warsame to determine whether the victim's statements to law enforcement related to an ongoing emergency: (1) was the victim describing events as they were actually happening, rather than describing past events; (2) would a reasonable listener recognize that the victim was facing an ongoing emergency and seeking aid rather than just telling a story; (3) were the questions and answers designed to resolve a present emergency rather than learn about past events; and (4) how formal was the interview as evaluated by the victim's demeanor and the environment in which she found herself. Wright, 726 N.W.2d at 473 (citing Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2276-77); Warsame, 735 N.W.2d at 690 (citing Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2276-77). We follow the same analysis in this case. We begin with a summary of the evidence the State offered about Vang's interaction with police and then examine this evidence under the lens of these four objective factors to determine whether the State proved that Vang's statement to police was nontestimonial. The only evidence the State offered about Vang's March 2004 statement to police was the testimony of Officer Baumhofer. Baumhofer testified that she was on duty on the day in question and was sent to meet a person at a restaurant at approximately 6 p.m. At the restaurant, she met Vang, who was alone and who said she had been assaulted by her husband who was not at the restaurant when police arrived. Vang said that the assault had happened right before police arrived. Baumhofer described Vang as very upset, but said that she was able to describe the assault after composing herself. Baumhofer observed fresh marks on Vang's chin, clavicle, and stomach, which Vang had said were caused by the assault. Baumhofer issued a call for Her to be arrested and called for a camera car to photograph Vang's injuries. With regard to the first factor from Wright and Warsame, the evidence shows that Vang reported a completed assault to police, an event that was over by the time police arrived. The State did not offer any evidence of the 911 call in this case. Rather, the record discloses only that Vang called police to meet her at a restaurant after she had gotten away from her attacker and after her attacker had left the scene. Baumhofer found Vang alone inside the restaurant, expecting police to arrive. From the testimony the State offered, it is clear that Vang described an event that had ended. [7] Regarding factors two and three, the State offered no evidence from which a reasonable listener could conclude that there was an ongoing emergency. A comparison of the record in this case with that of Wright and Warsame makes this clear. Unlike in Wright, where we recognized that the emergency continued until the suspect was in custody, the State in this case did not offer any evidence that Vang was afraid or had reason to be afraid that her attacker would return to the scene, or that he continued to be a threat to Vang or anyone else after leaving the scene. See Wright, 726 N.W.2d at 469 (discussing victim's ongoing fear of suspect). We also recognized that the emergency continued in Warsame until the suspect was apprehended. 735 N.W.2d at 696. But in that case, we noted that an objective observer could conclude from the victim's statements that the suspect was armed with a dangerous weapon, and that because the suspect remained at large the emergency continued. See id. at 694 (noting that an ongoing emergency may continue to exist when a dangerous suspect remains at large). In this case, Vang's statement indicated that Her used a weapon to assault hera metal nightstick. But unlike in Warsame, the State did not offer any evidence from which an objective observer could conclude that Her continued to present a danger to police or the public because he had injured or threatened others. The record does reflect that Baumhofer noticed fresh injury marks on Vang's chin, clavicle, and stomach, but the State did not establish on the record that Baumhofer thought Vang needed any medical attention as a result of these injuries. Cf. Warsame, 735 N.W.2d at 693 (concluding that questions addressing a victim's medical condition may qualify as an interrogation designed to meet an ongoing emergency). Unlike in Warsame, Baumhofer did not retrieve an emergency medical bag or call an ambulance. Rather, she summoned a camera car to document Vang's injuries and called for Her to be arrested, but the State did not establish which action Baumhofer took first. [8] In sum, the officer's actions documented in this record do not indicate to an objective observer that police were attempting to resolve a present emergency. Regarding the fourth factor, the record does not reflect the level of formality of the interview, and the State failed to establish whether, like in Warsame, Vang simply blurted out her story immediately upon encountering Baumhofer or whether the statement came out in response to formalized questioning. [9] Finally, as to the environment in which the police encountered the victim, while Vang was clearly upset when she spoke to Baumhofer, she does not appear from the record to have been in the same type of vulnerable environment as the victims in Wright and Warsame when they made statements we found to be nontestimonial. Vang met police inside a public place after she had gotten away from her attacker, and the State did not offer any evidence that Vang said she was afraid that Her was going to find her in the restaurant and continue his attack. See Warsame, 735 N.W.2d at 691 (discussing Hammon, 126 S.Ct. at 2278, and noting that statements were not related to an ongoing emergency because `there was no immediate threat to' the victim). For all of these reasons, we conclude that the State did not meet its burden to prove that Vang's statement to police was nontestimonial. We do not hold, as the concurrence states, that Vang's statements to Baumhofer are inadmissible under Crawford    and its progeny because the statements are testimonial. We, in fact, do not make a determination as to the testimonial or nontestimonial nature of the statements. We hold only that the State failed to meet its burden to show that the primary purpose of the interrogation in this case was to address an ongoing emergency. The concurrence takes a different approach, which ignores the State's burden of proof, and it reaches a conclusion that the statements were nontestimonial based on its analysis of evidence the State simply did not offer. But as the concurrence reminds us, it is `incumbent on courts to be watchful of every inroad on a principle so truly important' as the right to confrontation. See infra, ___ N.W.2d at ___, (Page, J., concurring) (quoting United States v. Burr, 25 F. Cas. 187, 193 (C.C.D.Va.1807) (No. 14,694)). Because the principle is so important, the State must be held to its burden before the principle can give way. See Caulfield, 722 N.W.2d at 308. The State did not meet that burden here. [10]