Opinion ID: 867984
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Medical Examiner Letter

Text: In contrast to the death certificates, the Sarah McCormick medical examiner letter was admitted after Robert objected to this type of evidence on the grounds that he could not “cross-examine it.” Assuming that this was sufficient to preserve the Confrontation Clause claim, and reviewing the issue de novo, we conclude there was no violation of the Confrontation Clause. The Confrontation Clause applies to “testimonial statements.” Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 821, 126 S. Ct. 2266, 2273 (2006). We have explained that a statement is testimonial if, for example, considering the statement’s “primary purpose” it was “made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.” 11 Case: 11-15268 Date Filed: 05/15/2013 Page: 12 of 19 United States v. Caraballo, 595 F.3d 1214, 1228–29 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks omitted). Indeed, in every “post-Crawford case in which the [Supreme] Court has found a violation of the confrontation right, the statement at issue had the primary purpose of accusing a targeted individual.” Williams v. Illinois, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 132 S. Ct. 2221, 2243 (2012). The letter at issue here was from the medical examiner’s office and was sent to Robert to request that he provide the examiner with Sara McCormick’s medical records as part of the examiner’s investigation into her death. It was simply a request for a patient’s records without any accusations. Because the letter was not “made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that [it] would be available for use at a later trial,” Caraballo, 595 F.3d at 1228 (quotation marks omitted), and it did not have “the primary purpose of accusing a targeted individual,” Williams, 132 S. Ct. at 2243, we find that it was not testimonial. Thus, the admission of the letter did not violate the Confrontation Clause.