Opinion ID: 2319474
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicable Law and Legal Precedent

Text: The Sixth Amendment provides, in part, that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him[.] U.S. Const. amend. VI. The same right is secured by Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, which states that in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him ... [and] to examine the witnesses for and against him on oath[.] See Crawford v. State, 282 Md. 210, 211, 383 A.2d 1097, 1098 (1978). As we have stated, [t]here are few subjects, perhaps, upon which this Court and other courts have been more nearly unanimous than in their expressions of belief that the right of confrontation and cross-examination is an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country's constitutional goal. State v. Breeden, 333 Md. 212, 219, 634 A.2d 464, 467 (1993) (quoting Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 721, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 1320, 20 L.Ed.2d 255, 258 (1968)). Further, [t]wo significant purposes lie at the core of the right of confrontation. One is to provide the defendant with an adequate opportunity for cross-examination. The other purpose is to give the judge and jury opportunities to observe the testifying witness's demeanor. Breeden v. State, 95 Md.App. 481, 495-96, 622 A.2d 160, 167 (1993) (internal citations omitted), aff'd, State v. Breeden, 333 Md. 212, 634 A.2d 464 (1993); see Crawford, 282 Md. at 214, 383 A.2d at 1099 (asserting that the primary purpose of requiring confrontation is to prevent depositions and other non-live testimony from being used against an accused in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the witness). In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the Supreme Court of the United States set forth a framework for evaluating violations of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. [9] Crawford, 541 U.S. at 50-56, 124 S.Ct. at 1363-67, 158 L.Ed.2d at 192-96. The Court stated that the Confrontation Clause applies to `witnesses' against the accusedin other words, those who `bear testimony.' Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d at 192. Quoting the American Dictionary of the English Language from 1828, the Court defined testimony as `[a] solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.' Id. The Court went on to state that the purpose of the Confrontation Clause was to protect against out-of-court statements, specifically formal statements to government officers, being admitted without an opportunity to confront the declarant. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d at 193. Crawford concluded that testimonial statements are subject to the protections of the Confrontation Clause and cannot be admitted without live testimony, unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53-54, 124 S.Ct. at 1365-66, 158 L.Ed.2d at 194. In defining the term testimonial statement, the Court in Crawford stated: Various formulations of this core class of testimonial statements exist: ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially; extrajudicial statements ... contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions; statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. These formulations all share a common nucleus and then define the Clause's coverage at various levels of abstraction around it. (Emphasis added.) (Internal citations and quotations omitted.) Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51-52, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d at 193. Hence, in Crawford, the Court referred to the purpose of the use of material in a later trial in two contexts. First, pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially, and second, statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted). The Court subsequently held in Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006), that if the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution, then the statement is testimonial. Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. at 2274, 165 L.Ed.2d at 237. In contrast, 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. Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. at 2273, 165 L.Ed.2d at 237. Likewise, in Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1143, 1155, 179 L.Ed.2d 93, 107 (2011), the Court held that [w]hen, as in Davis, the primary purpose of an interrogation is to respond to an `ongoing emergency,' its purpose is not to create a record for trial and thus is not within the scope of the Clause. The Court further stated that [t]he existence of an ongoing emergency is relevant to determining the primary purpose of the interrogation because an emergency focuses the participants on something other than `prov[ing] past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.' Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. [at 2274,] 165 L.Ed.2d [at 237]. Bryant, 562 U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 1157, 179 L.Ed.2d at 109. These cases combined reveal the Court's emphasis on the purpose for which a statement was made in determining its testimonial nature. Subsequently, in Melendez, the trial court admitted into evidence affidavits reporting the results of forensic analysis which showed that material seized by the police and connected to the defendant was cocaine. Melendez, 557 U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 2527, 2530, 174 L.Ed.2d 314, 319 (2009). At trial, the prosecution placed into evidence the three certificates of analysis, which were certified by the analysts who performed the drug testing, but without the testimony of the analysts or any other witness qualified to testify about the methods used or the results obtained. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2531, 174 L.Ed.2d at 320. In Melendez, the United States Supreme Court held that the certificates of drug analysis were testimonial because there is little doubt that the documents at issue in this case fall within the `core class of testimonial statements' as defined by Crawford. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2532, 174 L.Ed.2d at 321. The Court explained that the certificates were functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing `precisely what a witness does on direct examination,' opining that had an analyst been called, he or she would have been expected to testify as to the identity and weight of the substance, which was the precise evidence presented by the certificates. Id. (quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 830, 126 S.Ct. at 2278, 165 L.Ed.2d at 242). The Court continued that the certificates were quite plainly affidavits because they were incontrovertibly a `solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.' Id. (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d at 192). The Court further stated: [N]ot only were the affidavits made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52, 124 S.Ct. [at 1364], 158 L.Ed.2d [at 193], but under Massachusetts law the sole purpose of the affidavits was to provide prima facie evidence of the composition, quality, and the net weight of the analyzed substance[.] (Emphasis in original.) Id. (quoting Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 111, § 13). Thus, [t]he analysts who swore the affidavits provided testimony against Melendez-Diaz, and they are therefore subject to confrontation[.] Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2537 n. 6, 174 L.Ed.2d at 327 n. 6. Further, in Melendez, the Court noted that [l]ike expert witnesses generally, an analyst's lack of proper training or deficiency in judgment may be disclosed in cross-examination. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2537, 174 L.Ed.2d at 327. In Melendez, the Court made two important conclusions relevant to our analysis here: the analysts' affidavits were testimonial statements, and the analysts were `witnesses' for purposes of the Sixth Amendment.  Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2532, 174 L.Ed.2d at 322. The Court therefore held that the certificates were inadmissible absent the analysts' testimony or a showing that they were unavailable and that the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine. Id. The holding in Melendez left unanswered the question of how to apply the principle to cases involving surrogate testimony, where a supervisor for a lab testifies, but the actual person who created the data or report does not. Recently, in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2705, 180 L.Ed.2d 610 (2011), the United States Supreme Court held that [a]n analyst's certification prepared in connection with a criminal investigation or prosecution is testimonial and therefore the accused has the right to be confronted with the analyst who performed the testing. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2713-14, 180 L.Ed.2d at 620. The Court also stated that Melendez refused to create a `forensic evidence' exception to [the rule in Crawford that testimonial statements are not admissible unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant has a prior opportunity to cross-examine]. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2713, 180 L.Ed.2d at 620. In Bullcoming, the evidence against the petitioner included a forensic laboratory report certifying Bullcoming's blood-alcohol concentration. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2709, 180 L.Ed.2d at 617. At trial, the State did not call as a witness the analyst who performed the test and signed the certification; rather, over defense objection, the State called to testify another analyst who was familiar with the laboratory's testing procedures, but had neither participated in nor observed the test to introduce into evidence the test results. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2709, 180 L.Ed.2d at 618. In State v. Bullcoming, 147 N.M. 487, 226 P.3d 1, 8-9 (2010), the New Mexico Supreme Court held that although the laboratory report introduced at Bullcoming's trial was testimonial under Melendez, the report was validly admitted because the analyst was a mere scrivener, and therefore the surrogate testimony was sufficient to satisfy Bullcoming's confrontation right. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to answer the question: Does the Confrontation Clause permit the prosecution to introduce a forensic laboratory report containing a testimonial certification, made in order to prove a fact at a criminal trial, through the in-court testimony of an analyst who did not sign the certification or personally perform or observe the performance of the test reported in the certification. (Emphasis added.) Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2713, 180 L.Ed.2d at 619. In answering the question, the Court held: As a rule, if an out-of-court statement is testimonial in nature, it may not be introduced against the accused at trial unless the witness who made the statement is unavailable and the accused has had a prior opportunity to confront that witness. Id. Accordingly, the United States Supreme Court reversed the holding of the New Mexico Supreme Court. The Court first addressed the issue of surrogate testimony, and New Mexico's holding that the analyst merely transcribed the results generated by the machine without interpretation or independent judgment. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2714, 180 L.Ed.2d at 619-20. The Court stated that the certification reported more than a machine-generated number, and went on to list all of the representations made in the report relating to past events and human actions not revealed in raw, machine-produced data[.] Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2714, 180 L.Ed.2d at 621. The Court held that such representations are meet for cross-examination and continued that even if the certification was just a machine-generated number, the comparative reliability of an analyst's testimonial report drawn from machine-produced data does not overcome the Sixth Amendment bar. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2714-15, 180 L.Ed.2d at 621. The Court, explaining why surrogate testimony does not satisfy the Confrontation Clause, noted that the testimony of the kind [the expert] was equipped to give could not convey what [the analyst] knew or observed about the events his certification concerned, i.e., the particular test and testing process he employed. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2715, 180 L.Ed.2d at 622. The Court concluded that the analysts who write reports that the prosecution introduces must be made available for confrontation even if they possess `the scientific acumen of Mme. Curie and the veracity of Mother Teresa.' Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2715, 180 L.Ed.2d at 621 (quoting Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2537 n. 6, 174 L.Ed.2d. at 327 n. 6). Accordingly, the Court held that the [Confrontation] Clause does not tolerate dispensing with confrontation simply because the [trial] court believes that questioning one witness about another's testimonial statements provides a fair enough opportunity for cross-examination, highlighting the premise that `the purpose of the rights set forth in [the Sixth] Amendment is to ensure a fair trial; but it does not follow that the rights can be disregarded so long as the trial is, on the whole, fair.' Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2716, 180 L.Ed.2d at 622 (quoting United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 145, 126 S.Ct. 2557, 2562, 165 L.Ed.2d 409, 417 (2006)). The Supreme Court concluded that no substitute procedure can cure the violation and therefore the surrogate testimony at issue in the case violated the Confrontation Clause. Id. Bullcoming clarified the Confrontation Clause analysis regarding forensic testing that began in Melendez. In Melendez, the Court held that drug analysis certificates were testimonial because the contents of the certificates were functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing `precisely what a witness does on direct examination,' and the statements were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2532, 174 L.Ed.2d at 321 (citations omitted). The Court in Melendez thus held that the certificates were inadmissible absent the analysts' testimony or a showing that they were unavailable. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2532, 174 L.Ed.2d at 322. Following Melendez, in Bullcoming the Supreme Court further explained the definition of testimonial as including those statements made for the purpose of proving a particular fact. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2710, 180 L.Ed.2d at 616. In explaining Melendez, the Court in Bullcoming stated that the report in Melendez had been created specifically to serve as evidence in a criminal proceeding and therefore could not be introduced without offering a live witness competent to testify to the truth of the statements made in the report. Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2709, 180 L.Ed.2d at 615. The Court also stated that such reports are testimonial because they are created solely for an `evidentiary purpose,' i.e., in aid of a police investigation[.] Bullcoming, ___ U.S. at ___, 131 S.Ct. at 2717, 180 L.Ed.2d at 623. Although the Supreme Court has not yet answered the specific question of who must testify in cases involving scientific analysis, it has provided guidance as to which people involved with a case are witnesses whose statements will be considered testimony against the accused. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the dissent in Melendez argued vigorously that there are certain types of witnesses who are exempt from the requirements of the Confrontation Clause. The majority, however, rejected each of the justifications in turn. See Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2533-40, 174 L.Ed.2d at 323-30. First, the Court rejected the argument that the analysts are not accusatory witnesses and are thereby not the type of witnesses covered by the Confrontation Clause. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2533-34, 174 L.Ed.2d at 323. Massachusetts based this argument on the notion that an analyst is not accusatory because his or her testimony is only inculpatory when considered in conjunction with other evidence. The Court dispelled this theory, stating that there is not a third category of witnesses [ i.e., non-accusatory], helpful to the prosecution, but somehow immune from confrontation. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2534, 174 L.Ed.2d at 323. The Court read the Clause to literally mean that the defendant has the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him or her, and stated that the Clause only contemplates two classes of witnessesthose against the defendant and those in his favor. The prosecution must produce the former[.] Id. The Court also rejected a claim that the Confrontation Clause applies only to conventional witnesses. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2535, 174 L.Ed.2d at 324-25. The dissent in Melendez advanced three reasons why analysts were not conventional witnesses: analysts report near contemporaneous observations (as opposed to relating events observed in the past), analysts do not have personal knowledge of the crime, and analysts' statements are not the product of interrogation. Id. The Court rejected each argument in turn, stating that none of these contentions had adequate support in case law, and emphasizing that the determining factor is that the analysts were witnesses against the defendant and were responding to a police inquiry, not whether they were conventional. Id. Most importantly, the Court rejected the contention that analysts were somehow neutral witnesses based on the scientific nature of their statements. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2536-38, 174 L.Ed.2d at 325-328. The Court held that the supposed reliability of scientific evidence is not sufficient grounds to admit such statements absent live testimony. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2536-37, 174 L.Ed.2d at 326-27. Rather, there are other waysand in some cases better waysto challenge or verify the results of a forensic test. But the Constitution guarantees one way: confrontation. We do not have license to suspend the Confrontation Clause when a preferable trial strategy is available. [10] Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2536, 174 L.Ed.2d at 326. The Court also stated, Confrontation is designed to weed out not only the fraudulent analyst, but the incompetent one as well. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2537, 174 L.Ed.2d at 326. The Court then detailed the deficiencies of forensic evidence, highlighting the need to question the person who actually performed the test. In rejecting the idea of separate classes of witnesses, the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of confronting the person actually responsible for the testimonial statements. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2537-38, 174 L.Ed.2d at 326-27. See United States v. Moore, 651 F.3d 30, 71, 73-74 (D.C.Cir.2011) (applying Bullcoming to support the court's holding that the testimony at trial of a medical examiner and a forensic chemist regarding autopsy reports and drug analyses, respectively, was testimonial evidence that implicated the Confrontation Clause because the witnesses neither performed nor observed the underlying tests about which the reports concerned, and those reports were admitted into evidence). Prior to Bullcoming and Melendez, this Court endorsed a purpose-driven test when we held that the proper test for determining if a statement is testimonial focuses on whether the statement was made under circumstances that would lead an objective declarant reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial. State v. Snowden, 385 Md. 64, 83, 867 A.2d 314, 325 (2005). We evaluated a Confrontation Clause challenge in Rollins v. State, 392 Md. 455, 496, 897 A.2d 821, 845-46 (2006), and held that the autopsy reports at issue were business records and were not testimonial based on relevant statutory requirements. We stated that the Supreme Court indicated in Crawford that the hearsay exceptions, such as the business records exception, can exempt evidence from scrutiny under the Confrontation Clause. Rollins, 392 Md. at 479, 897 A.2d at 835. Subsequent to our opinion in Rollins, however, the Supreme Court's holding in Melendez undercut this line of reasoning, as it specifically stated that the business records exception would not permit an otherwise inadmissible testimonial statement to be admitted. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2539-40, 174 L.Ed.2d at 329-30. The Supreme Court pointed out that although documents kept in the regular course of business are ordinarily admitted into evidence under the hearsay exception, this will not be the case if the regularly conducted business activity is the production of evidence for use at trial. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2538, 174 L.Ed.2d at 328. The Court further related this distinction to police reports, stating that [t]he analysts' certificateslike police reports generated by law enforcement officialsdo not qualify as business or public records[.] Id. Therefore, the testimonial nature of a statement must be determined under the guidelines set forth in Crawford, Melendez, and Bullcoming, and whether the statement falls under a hearsay exception is irrelevant. For example, in Rollins, we held that the autopsy reports qualified under the business records exception to the hearsay rule because the records were kept during the regularly conducted business activity of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, as sanctioned by statute. [11] Rollins, 392 Md. at 482-83, 897 A.2d at 837. We also stated that, although an autopsy report might eventually be used in a criminal trial, [the report] was not created for that express purpose, and was statutorily required to be determined by the medical examiner.... Rollins, 392 Md. at 484, 897 A.2d at 838. Under Melendez and Bullcoming, however, it is now clear that the express purpose of the statement need not be for later use at trial, but instead, any statement that 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' is considered to be testimonial. Melendez, 557 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 2532, 174 L.Ed.2d at 321 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 158 L.Ed.2d at 193). The statute under which autopsy reports are completed, Md.Code (1982, 2009 Repl.Vol.), § 5-311 of the Health-General Article, clearly contemplates that the declarant in an autopsy report, the medical examiner or assistant, would reasonably expect the report to be used prosecutorially in the case of any non-accidental or assisted death. Subsection (c) of the statute itself requires the medical examiner to deliver a copy of the report to the State's Attorney when the medical examiner considers further investigation advisable. Consequently, to the extent Rollins was undermined by Melendez with regard to the business records exception, Rollins is no longer good law.