Opinion ID: 1944931
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hearsay in the Penalty Phase

Text: Rodgers next argues that the hearsay testimony of several witnesses admitted during the penalty phase violated his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Crawford held that [w]here testimonial [hearsay] evidence is at issue, . . . the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Id. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Below, we address (1) whether Rodgers's claim is preserved and whether Crawford applies to this case; (2) whether the testimony admitted violated Crawford; and (3) whether error, if any, was harmless.
The State erroneously contends that Rodgers's Crawford claim is not preserved and that Crawford does not apply to this case. Before trial, Rodgers filed a motion to bar the State from using any hearsay during the penalty phase that would violate his rights under the Confrontation Clauses of both the state and federal constitutions, and the trial court denied it. At the inception of the penalty phase, Rodgers renewed the motion, and the court again denied it. As testimony began, defense counsel objected to the State's presentation of hearsay testimony through specific witnesses, and each objection was denied. Section 90.104(1)(b), Florida Statutes, as amended in 2003, provides that [i]f the court has made a definitive ruling on the record admitting or excluding evidence, either at or before trial, a party need not renew an objection or offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal. See ch. 2003-259, § 1, at 1298, Laws of Fla. This Court adopted the statute to the extent that it is procedural effective on the date it became law, which was July 1, 2003. In re Amendments to the Florida Evidence CodeSection 90.104, 914 So.2d 940, 941 (Fla.2005); see art. V, § 2(a), Fla. Const. (providing [t]he Supreme Court shall adopt rules for the practice and procedure in all courts). Rodgers's trial was held after the effective date of the rule. Thus, Rodgers preserved the argument based solely on his pretrial motion. Even if he had not, however, he renewed the motion in the penalty phase and made contemporaneous objections on the same grounds. Accordingly, even absent the rule the claim is preserved. Further, Crawford applies to this case. In Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), the United States Supreme Court held that any new rule for conducting criminal trials applies retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final. Cf. Chandler v. Crosby, 916 So.2d 728, 729 (Fla.2005) (holding that Crawford does not apply retroactively to final decisions). Rodgers had not been sentenced when Crawford issued in March 2004. In addition, a defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause apply to the guilt phase, the penalty phase, and sentencing. See Rodriguez v. State, 753 So.2d 29, 43 (Fla.2000) (stating the uncontroverted proposition that the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation applies to all three phases of the capital trial). Thus, Rodgers raised and preserved his claim in the penalty phase, and Crawford applies because it issued during the pendency of his case in the trial court.
Rodgers contends that hearsay testimony presented in the penalty phase about his prior manslaughter conviction violated Crawford's holding that, to comply with the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, testimonial hearsay statements may be admitted against a criminal defendant only when the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness. See 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. [3] To establish the prior violent felony aggravator, the State offered evidence surrounding Rodgers's conviction in 1979 for killing his girlfriend. The State presented a former police officer (Bottomley) and a former prosecutor (Woodard) to testify to the statements made and the deposition testimony given by Teresa Caldwell, an eyewitness to the incident. Bottomley testified that he arrived at the scene to investigate the 1979 incident and took Caldwell's statement at the police station. She told him that she and Rodgers's live-in girlfriend Betty Caldwell (no relation) had been out together. When they returned, Rodgers was upset that Betty was late. The two began arguing and physically fighting. Then Rodgers shot Betty, killing her. On redirect, Bottomley said he was uncertain whether Caldwell said Rodgers hit Betty first, but she had said there was some slapping or some hitting. Woodard, the prosecutor in that case, testified based on the defense's 1979 pretrial deposition of Caldwell, at which he was present. Woodard was asked whether Caldwell's pretrial deposition indicated the initial aggressor in the argument. After reading part of the deposition, he responded that Caldwell said that Rodgers hit Betty first, and she fell. Betty then cut Rodgers with a razor, and he kicked her, again knocking her down. Defense counsel timely objected to this hearsay testimony, arguing that it violated Smith's Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. The trial court allowed the testimony, however, because Caldwell testified at the 1979 trial and the State provided the defense with Caldwell's pretrial deposition. [4] The State neither argued nor demonstrated that Caldwell was not available to testify. [5] Whether the admission of the witnesses' testimony was Crawford error depends on whether Caldwell's statement and deposition are testimonial. Although in Crawford the Supreme Court declined to define testimonial, it did say that [w]hatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations. 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Subsequently, however, in Davis v. Washington, ____ U.S. ____, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006), the Court addressed how to determine which police interrogations produce testimony and held as follows: Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. Id. at 2273-74; see also id. at 2276 (stating that the result of the latter type of interrogation, whether reduced to a writing signed by the declarant or embedded in the memory (and perhaps the notes) of the interrogating officer, is testimonial). Under this test, Caldwell's statements to the police officer were testimonial because they were made in the course of an investigation. Caldwell's 1979 deposition, which Rodgers's defense counsel took in preparing for trial, was even more clearly testimonial. See Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2275-76 (describing sworn testimony in prior judicial proceedings or formal depositions under oath as involv[ing] testimonial statements of the most formal sort); Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (An accuser who makes a formal statement to government officers bears testimony in a sense that a person who makes a casual remark to an acquaintance does not.). Thus, both Caldwell's statements to the investigating officer and her deposition testimony are clearly testimonial under Crawford, and the State did not claim or show that Caldwell was unavailable to testify in the penalty phase. Accordingly, Bottomly and Woodard's hearsay testimony violated Rodgers's Sixth Amendment right under Crawford. As we explain below, however, reversal is not required where the error is harmless.
Violations of the Confrontation Clause are subject to harmless error analysis. Hopkins v. State, 632 So.2d 1372, 1377 (Fla.1994). An error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt when, after considering all the permissible evidence, a court concludes that there is no reasonable possibility that the error contributed to the jury's recommendation of death. See Perry v. State, 801 So.2d 78, 91 (Fla.2001) (citing State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129, 1135 (Fla.1986)). We conclude that the admission of Caldwell's statements through the former investigating officer and assistant state attorney was harmless. First, the State introduced a certified copy of the prior manslaughter conviction, which established the prior violent felony conviction aggravator. See Rodriguez, 753 So.2d at 45 ([I]n many cases, any error in admitting the hearsay testimony has been considered harmless because the certified copy of the conviction itself conclusively establishes the aggravator.). The error is also harmless because Caldwell's account of the argument between Betty and Rodgers and his shooting of Betty was merely cumulative to, and corroborative of, Rodgers's own admissions. During the penalty phase, the State also introduced evidence, again through Bottomley, about Rodgers's statements in 1979 to police investigating his girlfriend's killing. These statements were clearly admissible. Rodgers admitted being upset when Betty returned late with the car and that they began arguing. Rodgers stated that Betty attacked him with a razor, and Rodgers went and got a gun and put it in his pocket. The pair then argued some more, and Betty again attacked him with the razor, this time cutting his hand. Rodgers threw her down and took the razor away from her. Then Betty picked up a substantial crystal candy dish, and as she charged Rodgers, he shot her. On cross-examination by the defense, Bottomley testified that in the several years before Rodgers killed Betty, the couple was involved in two documented incidents of domestic violence. On one occasion, Betty had shot Rodgers twice and on another had cut him with a razor. Each time, Rodgers refused to press charges. Bottomley further stated that on the night Rodgers shot Betty, Rodgers was treated at the hospital for the cut Betty inflicted. In addition, he testified that Caldwell told him that she and Betty had been drinking and smoking marijuana before they returned home and that the argument between Rodgers and Betty was hostile on both sides. As recounted by the investigating police officer, Rodgers's own more detailed description of his argument with, and killing of, his girlfriend did not conflict with Caldwell's. Except that Rodgers did not specifically say who hit whom first, their descriptions of the order of events are consistent. Because the hearsay testimony was merely cumulative, we hold that its erroneous admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.