Opinion ID: 1602581
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Violation of Sixth Amendment

Text: Laine argues that the postconviction court erred in not granting him a new trial based on the case of Giles v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2678, 171 L.Ed.2d 488 (2008). Laine alleges that the State introduced out-of-court statements by Jagunich to show prior acts of domestic abuse and that the statements were testimonial because they were made to friends, family, law enforcement, and others for use in later litigation. Such statements, Laine argues, violate the petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him under Giles . The postconviction court rejected Laine's argument and concluded: This case is very different from Giles , . . . where the victim had made statements to a police officer describing an earlier incident of abuse by the defendant. In this case, the statements were made to friends and co-workers. None of the statements were made to law enforcement. As a result, the statements were non-testimonial, admissible at trial and did not implicate Crawford [ v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), upon which Giles relies]. We agree with the postconviction court that Giles does not stand for the proposition represented by Laine. Nowhere does Giles conclude that statements made by domestic abuse victims to friends and coworkers are considered to be testimonial in nature and protected by the Crawford doctrine of prior testimonial statements. Accordingly, the postconviction court did not err in denying a new trial based on the Giles case. Finally, Laine argues his conviction should be reversed because certain incidents of past abuse were not sufficiently proximate in time to be part of a pattern of domestic abuse. This claim is Knaffla -barred. Laine could have argued on direct appeal, but did not, that some of the incidents of domestic abuse should have been excluded. Further, even if some incidents were arguably inadmissible, the postconviction court concluded that, taken as a whole, the most recent incidents of domestic abuse amounted to overwhelming evidence of a past pattern of domestic abuse. We agree and conclude that the postconviction court did not abuse its discretion in denying a new trial based on the claim that past incidents of abuse were inadmissible. Affirmed. STRAS, J., not having been a member of this court at the time of submission, took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.