Opinion ID: 1944931
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Determining Crawford Error

Text: 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.