Opinion ID: 1726381
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recent Case Law

Text: Two years after its decision in Crawford, the Supreme Court in two companion cases Davis/Hammon was asked to determine precisely which police interrogations produce testimony. 126 S.Ct. at 2273. [2] In Davis/Hammon, the Court articulated the following rule to distinguish between testimonial and nontestimonial statements: 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 (footnote omitted). The facts in each of the two companion cases are helpful in understanding this rule, so we will address them separately. The Davis case involved a domestic assault victim's statements to a 911 operator while the assault was occurring in the victim's home. Davis/Hammon, 126 S.Ct. at 2270-71. During the 911 call, the victim responded to a series of questions from the operator and then told the operator that her assailant was leaving the home in a car. Id. at 2271. At that point, the operator told the victim to stop talking and proceeded to ask the victim questions about the assailant and the assault. Id. The Court concluded that at the very least, the victim's statements up until she told the operator that the assailant was driving away from the home were nontestimonial because the circumstances objectively indicated that the primary purpose of those statements was to enable police to meet an ongoing emergency. Id. at 2277. In the Davis case, the Supreme Court cited four objective factors that indicated the victim's statements were made to meet an ongoing emergency: (1) the victim described events as they actually happened and not past events; (2) any reasonable listener would conclude that the victim was facing an ongoing emergency; (3) the questions asked and answers given were necessary to resolve a present emergency, rather than only to learn what had happened in the past; and (4) there was a low level of formality in the interview because the victim's answers were frantic and her environment was not tranquil or safe. Id. at 2276-77. The Court further noted that the victim was seeking aid, not telling a story. Id. at 2279. Although the Court was not required to determine whether statements made after the assailant had driven away were testimonial, the Court noted that a conversation which begins as an interrogation to determine the need for emergency assistance can evolve into testimonial statements once that former purpose has been achieved. Id. at 2277. In Hammon, the Supreme Court concluded that all of a domestic assault victim's statements to the police were testimonial. 126 S.Ct. at 2278. In the Hammon case, the police came to the victim's home and found the victim and her assailant in separate places, and the police kept the assailant and the victim in separate rooms while the victim was questioned. Id. at 2272, 2278. The Court noted that under the facts in Hammon, there was no emergency in progress when the police arrived at the victim's home because the victim assured the police that things were fine and there was no immediate threat to her person. Id. at 2278. In Hammon, the Supreme Court also observed that during the officer's questioning of the victim, the officer was determining what happened, not what was happening. Id. In addition, there was a formal aspect to the mode of questioning because the victim's statements were deliberately recounted in response to the officer's questions and took place some time after the events described occurred, which the Court noted are circumstances more characteristic of an investigation. Id. But the Court made a final observation that police questions at the scene of a domestic dispute can yield nontestimonial answers because the police `need to know whom they are dealing with in order to assess the situation, the threat to their own safety, and possible danger to the potential victim.' Id. at 2279 (quoting Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt Cty., 542 U.S. 177, 186, 124 S.Ct. 2451, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004)).
On a remand from the Supreme Court, we applied the Davis/Hammon principles in State v. Wright, 726 N.W.2d 464 (Minn. 2007). Wright involved a 911 call and victim interviews. Wright allegedly pulled a gun and pointed it at his girlfriend, R.R., and her sister before leaving the apartment Wright and R.R. shared. Wright, 726 N.W.2d at 467, 470. R.R. called 911, told the operator how she had been threatened, described Wright in response to the operator's questioning, and then asked her sister to speak with the operator after the operator told R.R. that the police had arrived at the apartment. Id. at 467-68. After determining where R.R. and her sister were in the building and notifying R.R.'s sister that the police had sighted Wright and were following him, the operator learned that Wright was in police custody and informed R.R.'s sister of this fact. Id. at 468. Then, in response to R.R.'s sister's concerns and questions, the operator comforted and assured the sister that the situation was under control. Id. Following Wright's arrest, police officers conducted a field investigation interview of both R.R. and her sister at the apartment. Id. at 469. We concluded in Wright that the police interviews were testimonial but that the entire 911 call was nontestimonial. Id. at 475-76. Regarding the interviews, we stated that as in Davis/Hammon, by the time the interviews occurred, the emergency had ended because Wright was in custody. 726 N.W.2d at 476. We therefore concluded that the interviews were conducted to establish events potentially relevant to Wright's prosecution. Id. Regarding the 911 call, we specifically addressed whether the 911 call should be divided between testimonial and nontestimonial statements, but we concluded that it was not necessary to do so. Id. at 474. We concluded that the emergency was ongoing until Wright was in custody, and even after Wright was in custody, the sole purpose of the remainder of the call was to calm R.R.'s sister and not to establish or prove past events. Id. at 474-75 (distinguishing the facts from those in Davis ).