Opinion ID: 1057626
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Whether the Statement Is Testimonial

Text: Having determined that the contractor's statement was indeed hearsay, we now turn to the threshold question of Confrontation Clause analysis: whether the statement is testimonial. See United States v. Hinton, 423 F.3d 355, 358 (3d Cir.2005). The United States Supreme Court has defined testimonial only incrementally, hewing closely to the specific facts of each case and refraining from comprehensive elaboration of what the term means. In Crawford , the Supreme Court extensively traced the history of the principal evil targeted by the Confrontation Clause: the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused. 541 U.S. at 50, 124 S.Ct. 1354. The Court explained that the Confrontation Clause applies to `witnesses' against the accusedin other words those who `bear testimony.' Id. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (quoting 2 Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)). The Court in turn defined testimony as a `solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.' Id. (quoting Webster, supra ). The Court explained that someone making a formal accusation to government officials bears testimony in a way that someone casually remarking to an acquaintance does not. Id. After articulating several possible formulations of a testimonial statement, the Court ultimately concluded that the testimonial category applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations. Id. at 51-52, 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. That minimal definition was sufficient to decide Crawford , where the declarant made the challenged hearsay statements in police custody, responding to detectives' questions while being considered as a possible suspect. Id. at 65, 124 S.Ct. 1354. The admission of those testimonial statements violated the petitioner's Sixth Amendment rights because there was no opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Id. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. In Davis , the Supreme Court was asked to determine more precisely which police interrogations produce testimony. 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266. The Court held that, in the context of police interrogation, [s]tatements are nontestimonial... under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. Id. By contrast, statements made during interrogations 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. This primary purpose test in Davis was sufficient for the Court to decide the companion cases, both domestic assaults. A 911 caller's identification of the defendant was a nontestimonial statement because it was plainly a call for help against bona fide physical threat with a primary purpose to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. [15] Id. at 827-28, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Unlike the formalized interrogation in Crawford , the declarant in Davis described events as they were unfolding, faced an ongoing emergency, responded to questions designed to resolve the emergency, and provided frantic answers in a dangerous setting void of any formality. Id. at 827, 126 S.Ct. 2266. By contrast, in the much easier companion case of Hammon v. Indiana, the Court held that the victim gave testimonial responses to police questioning, including a written statement on a battery affidavit, after the disturbance had ended and while her husband-assailant was kept by another officer in a separate room. Id. at 829-30, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Instead of a cry for help []or the provision of information enabling officers immediately to end a threatening situation, an objective perspective established that the primary ... purpose of the interrogation was to investigate a possible crime. Id. at 830, 832, 126 S.Ct. 2266. The Court specifically distinguished statements seeking aid that showed immediacy from a narrative of past events... delivered at some remove in time from the danger. [16] Id. at 831-32, 126 S.Ct. 2266. To this point, we have likewise wrestled with the definition of testimonial primarily in the context of statements made to law enforcement or its agents. We began with State v. Maclin , a consolidated pair of appeals that we decided after Crawford but before the Supreme Court issued an opinion in Davis . Carefully reading Crawford , we discerned that testimony involves a formal or official statement made or elicited with a purpose of being introduced at a criminal trial. 183 S.W.3d at 346. While noting that the presence or absence of an oath was not dispositive, we also rejected a per se approach that would have classified every accusatory statement to a police officer during an investigation as testimonial. Id. at 346, 348. Borrowing language from Crawford , we decided that the overarching consideration was whether the statement 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.' Id. at 349 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52, 124 S.Ct. 1354). We articulated the following list of non-exclusive factors to aid in deciding whether a particular statement is testimonial: (1) whether the declarant was a victim or an observer; (2) whether contact was initiated by the declarant or by law-enforcement officials; (3) the degree of formality attending the circumstances in which the statement was made; (4) whether the statement was given in response to questioning, whether the questioning was structured, and the scope of such questioning; (5) whether the statement was recorded (either in writing or by electronic means); (6) the declarant's purpose in making the statements; (7) the officer's purpose in speaking with the declarant; and (8) whether an objective declarant under the circumstances would believe that the statements would be used at a trial. Id. Applied to the facts in Maclin , we described as testimonial the victim's detailed narrative of the defendant's assault in response to police officers' general question whether the victim was okay. Id. at 352. Our analysis emphasized that the victim had initiated contact with police by calling 911, was no longer in immediate danger when police responded, and included extraordinary detail in her response. Id. By contrast, in the much easier companion case of State v. Anderson, we held that a group of teenage witnesses offered nontestimonial statements when they flagged down a police officer and, upon being asked What's going on?, pointed to a building sounding a burglar alarm and gave a physical description of the intruder. Id. at 353. We concluded that the witnesses' statements merely intended to direct police intervention to a crime in progress without anticipating their statements would be used at trial. Id. Likewise, we concluded that the officer's intent was not to develop evidence for prosecution or trial, but merely to determine what was happening and what type of police intervention was needed. Id. We emphasized the officer's preliminary investigational mode in trying to determine the source and cause of the burglar alarm, the witnesses' informal manner in flagging down the officer, and the general nature of the officer's question to the witnesses. Id. With the benefit of the Supreme Court's decision in Davis , we returned to the Confrontation Clause in State v. Lewis . In that case, the defendant was convicted for facilitation of the attempted especially aggravated robbery and criminally negligent homicide of the owner of an antiques store. At trial, the proof established that, when employees of the business next door heard noises in the antiques store and went to investigate, the owner cried out for help, asking them to call 911 and explaining that he had been shot. A police officer arrived at the scene and asked the owner questions about what had happened. After paramedics arrived and began treating the owner's wounds, he told the officer that the lady's information is on the desk. When the officer asked which lady the victim meant, the victim replied, the lady with the vases. When asked whether this lady was connected to the crime, the victim responded, I know she is. The officer found a paper on the desk counter with the defendant's name, driver's license number, and the words two vases. Prior to the crime, the defendant had been in negotiations to sell two vases to the owner. 235 S.W.3d at 139-40. On appeal, the defendant challenged the admission of the victim's statement I know she is as a violation of the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 146. We recited language from Davis regarding the distinctions between testimonial and nontestimonial statements made to law enforcement, id. at 143-44, and regarding the factual distinctions among the contexts surrounding the statements made in Crawford , Davis , and Hammon, id. at 146-47. We held that the statement I know she is qualified as testimonial. Id. at 147. Our analysis emphasized that the assailant had left the store, the victim had spoken with the employees from the business next door, and the 911 call had already taken place. Id. Although still at the crime scene, the victim was responding to inquiries by investigating officers. Id. The statement was a summary of past criminal events, rather than a description of an ongoing emergency. [17] Id. In our most recent decision addressing the definition of testimonial, we acknowledged that the Supreme Court's decision in Davis abrogated our prior decision in Maclin because the Court adopted a primary purpose test ... requir[ing] courts to examine the context in which a statement is given. Cannon, 254 S.W.3d at 302. We then held that [s]tatements are testimonial if the primary purpose of the statement is to establish or to prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecutions. Id. at 303. In Cannon , we applied the primary purpose test to four sets of statements made by a rape victim. First, we held that statements to emergency room personnel, as memorialized in the victim's medical records, were nontestimonial because (1) Crawford cited business records as an example of nontestimonial statements and (2) the primary purpose of the statements was medical diagnosis and treatment. Id. (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 56, 124 S.Ct. 1354). Second, statements to the police officer who responded to the victim's 911 call were testimonial because there was no ongoing emergency, and the primary purposes of the victim's statements were to describe and to establish a past crime rather than to make a cry for help. Id. at 304 (internal quotation omitted). Third, the victim's statements to a detective at the emergency room were testimonial because the emergency room personnel had already stabilized the victim, and the primary purpose of both the detective and the victim was the exchange of information about a past crime. Id. Fourth and finally, we held that the victim's statements to the sexual assault nurse examiner were testimonial. Id. at 305. We considered these statements to raise a question of first impression explicitly unresolved by Davis [t]he proper classification of out-of-court statements to persons other than law enforcement personnelalthough we noted that the Supreme Court had treated the 911 operator in Davis as an agent of the police. Id. at 304. We concluded that the primary purpose of the nurse's interrogation of the victim was to establish past events relevant to a later prosecution. Id. at 305. We emphasized the nurse's testimony concerning her law enforcement training on how to ask questions and collect evidence; her description of the investigation and forensic examination that she performed on the victim; the detective's participation in the questioning; the delay of the questioning until after emergency room personnel examined the victim; and the policy of both the police department and the hospital to have a sexual assault nurse examiner speak with each victim of a sex-related crime. [18] Id. Even more specifically than the statements to the sexual assault nurse examiner in Cannon , the case presently before us raises a question that the Supreme Court has explicitly left undecided: whether and when statements made to someone other than law enforcement personnel are `testimonial.' Davis, 547 U.S. at 823 n. 2, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Unlike Cannon , neither the victim nor the contractor in this case had any association or agency relationship with law enforcement. Instead, this case presents an exchange between two truly private parties. Some of the existing law supports the proposition that conversations between private parties are categorically nontestimonial. In Crawford , while discussing the scope of the Sixth Amendment, the Supreme Court explained that [a]n off-hand, overheard remark ... bears little resemblance to the civil-law abuses the Confrontation Clause targeted, in contrast with  ex parte examinations [by government officials]... the Framers certainly would not have condoned. 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Continuing to the definition of testimony, the Court drew another distinction: [a]n 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. Id. The Court repeated this distinction in Davis. 547 U.S. at 824, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Other language in Davis also suggests that conversations between private parties cannot be testimonial. In discussing the history of the Supreme Court's Confrontation Clause jurisprudence, Davis cited a case involving the admissibility of a conversation between fellow prisoners as an example of statements at issue [that] were clearly nontestimonial. Id. at 825, 126 S.Ct. 2266 (citing Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 87-89, 91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970)). Davis also stated unequivocally that formality is indeed essential to testimonial utterance, id. at 830 n. 5, 126 S.Ct. 2266, and an exchange between two private parties will often lack the requisite formality when neither party has any association or agency relationship with law enforcement. While Davis cautioned that its analysis of police interrogations was not to imply, however, that statements made in the absence of any interrogation are necessarily nontestimonial, id. at 822 n. 1, 126 S.Ct. 2266, some courts have speculated whether this language only le[aves] open the question of whether statements made to government officials other than law enforcement are testimonial, rather than holding open the door for classifying any statements to private parties as testimonial, see State v. Brown, 285 Kan. 261, 173 P.3d 612, 632 (2007). Based on the language from Crawford and Davis , some courts have categorically held that statements between private partiesor, at least, specific types of such statementsare not testimonial. [19] Today, however, we do not hold that statements between private parties unconnected to law enforcement, such as the exchange between the victim and the contractor in this case, are per se nontestimonial and thus exempt from Confrontation Clause scrutiny. The United States Supreme Court has not expressly decided this issue, and, much like that Court, we will continue to define which statements are testimonial only to the extent necessary to resolve the case before us. [20] Drawing from cases involving police interrogations, the law is clear that statements `are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no ... ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.' Cannon, 254 S.W.3d at 302 (quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266). To account for the absence of law enforcement in this case, we merely need to replace interrogation with dialogue, exchange, or a similarly neutral term. Conversely, the statement is nontestimonial if the primary purpose is something other than establishing or proving past events potentially relevant to prosecution, such as providing or enabling assistance to resolve an ongoing emergency. See id. An objective standard, focusing on the perspective of a reasonable person, governs the determination of the statement's primary purpose. Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266; Seely v. State, 373 Ark. 141, 282 S.W.3d 778, 787 (2008). In the context of statements obtained through questions and answers, courts have grappled with the issue of whether the declarant's or the questioner's intent is the proper focus in determining the primary purpose. Some courts have focused exclusively on the declarant's intent. [21] E.g., Cuyuch v. State, 284 Ga. 290, 667 S.E.2d 85, 89-90 (2008). These courts cite language from Davis stating that it is in the final analysis the declarant's statements, not the interrogator's questions, that the Confrontation Clause requires us to evaluate. 547 U.S. at 822 n. 1, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Other courts consider both the declarant's and the questioner's intent in determining the primary purpose. E.g., Seely, 282 S.W.3d at 787; Brown, 173 P.3d at 631; State ex rel. Juvenile Dep't v. S.P. (In re S.P.), 346 Or.592, 215 P.3d 847, 865 (2009); Commonwealth v. Allshouse, 924 A.2d 1215, 1221 (Pa.Super.Ct.2007). These courts point to the holding in Davis that statements are testimonial when the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution. 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Because different passages in Davis can be read to consider either the declarant's or the questioner's intent, these courts incorporate both perspectives into their objective analysis of the statement's primary purpose. Still other courts have established different tests depending on context. At least one jurisdiction considers the questioner's intent to be paramount when the statements result from police questioning, but the declarant's intent is paramount when law enforcement is not involved in the questioning. E.g., People v. Stechly, 225 Ill.2d 246, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d 333, 357, 360 (2007). This approach emphasizes that Davis only dealt with responses to police questioning and refrained from discussing other types of statements. Id. at 359. When supplying information in response to direct police questioning, the declarant is rarely `in the driver's seat,' thus warranting a different focus in such cases. Id. We believe that considering the intent both of a reasonable person in the declarant's position and of a reasonable person in the questioner's position is the approach most faithful to the Supreme Court's decisions in Crawford and Davis and most consistent with our previous applications of those precedents. By making repeated reference to the primary purpose of the interrogation, Davis incorporates the questioner's intent into the determination of whether a statement is testimonial. However, Davis also instructs us to evaluate the declarant's statements, and we cannot ignore the prior language in Crawford regarding the reasonable expectations of the declarant concerning the subsequent use of the statement for prosecution and trial. Given the present state of the law and the limited number of contexts in which the Supreme Court has defined testimonial statements, we are reluctant to make an affirmative decision to analyze the question from an entirely different perspective when law enforcement is not involved. Objectively considering the statement from both the declarant's and questioner's perspectives comports with the way that we have analyzed these questions in prior cases. In Maclin , Lewis , and Cannon , we thoroughly considered all the surrounding circumstances in making case-by-case determinations whether a particular statement was testimonial. In Maclin , the sixth factor in our non-exclusive list was the declarant's purpose in making the statements, and the seventh factor was the officer's [22] purpose in speaking with the declarant. 183 S.W.3d at 349 (footnote added). In determining whether an ongoing emergency existed in Lewis , we noted the victim-declarant's purpose in making the statementsto describe past eventsand the officers' purpose in speaking with the victimto investigate a crime after the perpetrator had left the scene. 235 S.W.3d at 147. We did the same in Cannon , and what makes that case particularly noteworthy is the presence of the sexual assault nurse, who was, at least nominally, someone other than law enforcement personnel. 254 S.W.3d at 304-05. We examined at length the primary purpose of her questioning the victim-declarant. Id. at 305. We believe the multi-factor test that we first articulated in Maclin and repeated in Lewis remains relevant in determining whether the statement is testimonial. Such factors as the identity of the declarant, the formality of the surrounding circumstances, the structure and extent of the questioning, et al. may very well bear on the ultimate, decisive inquiry: an objective determination of the primary purpose of the statement. We emphasize that the factors are non-exhaustive, Lewis, 235 S.W.3d at 143, and allow for consideration of additional factual details specific to a particular case. Lower courts ought not apply the factors mechanically. See United States v. Rankin, 64 M.J. 348, 352 (C.A.A.F.2007) ([T]he Crawford analysis is contextual, rather than subject to mathematical application of bright line thresholds.). Instead, courts should consider the factors where helpful in assessing if the primary purpose of the statement is to establish or to prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecutions, rather than to resolve an ongoing emergency or for some other purpose. Cannon, 254 S.W.3d at 303; see Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266. The Court of Criminal Appeals considered the Lewis factors and concluded that the contractor's statement of the written tag number was testimonial. The court opined that, under the circumstances, an objective witness would have reasonably believed that his statement would be available for use at trial. The contractor was an observer with whom Polson initiated contact to obtain identifying information about the car being driven away by the man whom she believed had robbed the store. The contractor walked over, observed the answer to Polson's question, and then returned and wrote down his response. Ultimately, the intermediate court concluded that the contractor did not make the statement to assist with an emergency because the emergency had already passed. Instead, the court held that the contractor made the written statement `to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.' State v. Franklin, No. W2007-02772-CCA-R3-CD, 2009 WL 29893, at -9 (Tenn.Crim.App. Jan.5, 2009) (quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266). Accordingly, the court held that the statement was testimonial, and, because Defendant had no opportunity to cross-examine the contractor, its admission violated his Confrontation Clause rights. We disagree. Based on our review of the facts, we conclude that the contractor's primary purpose for making the statement was to respond to the victim's cry for help and assist with an ongoing emergency. Polson exited the store, got the contractor's attention, and, in quick succession, informed him that she had been robbed and asked him to get the tag number of the vehicle she saw leaving the parking lot. Polson then saw the contractor lean over and observe the tag number as the minivan drove by. Rather than providing a description of past events that had occurred well beforehand, the contractor's written statement memorialized events that he observed as they were actually happening. [23] Although Polson initiated contact with the contractor, the surrounding context reflects a total absence of the formality and solemnity a reasonable person would associate with the kind of questioning that produces testimonial statements. Polson's questioning lacked the bare modicum of structure and was limited in scope to a single issue: the observation of a tag number that the contractor could see but she could not. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the contractor was simply responding to a plea for help from a distressed individual in need of assistance. An employee from the business next door to his job site claimed that she was robbed and asked him to observe a tag number of a vehicle belonging to a man who was leaving the premises. In the heat of that moment, a reasonable person in the contractor's position would have had very little time to think. He was merely providing requested assistance. The fact that the tag number became relevant to a later prosecution does not automatically make the tag number testimonial. See Mendez, 514 F.3d at 1046. Even after the actual crime has ended, the emergency may continue as long as the perpetrator might be found in the vicinity. See United States v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177, 190 (6th Cir.2007); People v. Osorio, 165 Cal.App.4th 603, 81 Cal.Rptr.3d 167, 176 (2008), review denied (Cal. Oct. 28, 2008). In this case, although the robbery had concluded before Polson first spoke to the contractor, we believe that the emergency continued at least until the contractor wrote down the tag number. Polson testified that, based on the threat to blow [her] ass off if she did not hand over the business's money, she believed that the perpetrator was armed. Cf. State ex rel. J.A., 195 N.J. 324, 949 A.2d 790, 804 n. 14 (2008) (collecting cases, including Arnold , for the proposition that after a shooting or an offense involving a gun, the immediate threat of the armed suspect returning to the scene constitutes an ongoing emergency). Furthermore, after telling her to count to ten, the perpetrator did not leave the store immediately but rather waited until Polson had nearly completed her count. Polson admitted that she took a chance by heading out into the parking lot so quickly after she heard the dinging sound at the front door. Therefore, when Polson got the contractor's attention and asked him to write down the tag number while the perpetrator of the robbery was in the parking lot just outside the store, a reasonable person in her position would have thought that the emergency was ongoing and she remained in harm's way. For such a reasonable person preoccupied with obtaining help for an ongoing emergency, the primary purpose of asking for the tag number would not be establishing or proving past events for the benefit of a later criminal prosecution, but to assist in capturing the perpetrator. Because these federal constitutional principles are frequently litigated in other courts, we consider the decisions of other jurisdictions concerning statements made in comparable factual circumstances. These decisions indicate a growing consensus that statements establishing the identity of the perpetrator are nontestimonial when made in informal settings during the immediate aftermath of a crime. In State v. Calhoun , a woman arrived home at the same time a police officer pulled up in response to a call regarding shots fired in the vicinity. 189 N.C.App. 166, 657 S.E.2d 424, 425 (2008), appeal denied, 666 S.E.2d 651 (N.C.2008). The woman and the officer entered the home to find the victim on the floor. When the woman asked the victim who had shot him, the victim identified two individuals by their nicknames. Then, when the woman asked the victim to squeeze her hand to confirm that these were the nicknames of the shooters, the victim did so. The officer observed and recorded the identification. Id. While the court held that the statement was nontestimonial because it was made to a private citizen, the court also went on to reason that the statement would have been nontestimonial even if the victim had communicated directly to the officer. Id. at 427. The court emphasized that, in an interrogation with the primary purpose of enabling police assistance to deal with an ongoing emergency, permissible questions may `establish the identity of the assailant, so that the dispatched officers might know whether they would be encountering a violent felon.' Id. (quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 827, 126 S.Ct. 2266). Therefore, identity-establishing responses amidst an ongoing emergency are nontestimonial when the victim responds to a private citizen's request for identification. If such identity-establishing responses are nontestimonial when the victim responds to a private citizen's question, then a similar result should obtain during an ongoing emergency when a private citizen responds to the victim's question. The context surrounding these identity-establishing responses may provide additional reasons for finding them nontestimonial. In State v. Slater, two men were approached by a victim walking down the street at a fast pace crying and screaming. 285 Conn. 162, 939 A.2d 1105, 1114 (2008), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 2885, 171 L.Ed.2d 822 (2008). When the men asked what was wrong and whether they could help, the victim stated that `a black male with a big knife just raped her.' Id. The men took the victim inside and called the police. Noting that the absence of law enforcement was not dispositive, the court held that the statements were nontestimonial because the victim clearly was seeking aid and the men responded with no indication that their primary purpose was to do anything but to aid her. Id. Furthermore, the surrounding circumstances lacked any degree of formality, solemnity, or reflection. Id. at 1114-15. As compared to our case, Polson was clearly seeking aid when she asked the contractor for the minivan's tag number, and there is no indication that the contractor had any primary purpose besides helping Polson. Where the scene was likewise devoid of formalities, we see no meaningful distinction in the facts that Polson sought help by asking a question and the contractor provided that help by obtaining the information that Polson asked for. Similar analysis led the Brown court to conclude that, minutes after a shooting, when one witness asked another emotionally distraught bystander what was wrong, the second bystander gave a nontestimonial response by saying, That's my cousin. They said Lovey shot him. 173 P.3d at 621, 635. The court reasoned that the statement was made from one bystander to another, outside of law enforcement's hearing. Id. at 634. The fact that one bystander was clearly shaken by the events and the scene tended to obviat[e] any implication that [the questioning bystander's] inquiry was to accuse for purposes of criminal prosecution and weigh[ed] toward a conclusion that the statement, although accusatory, was not made with that purpose in mind. Id. Again, the court noted the absence of any of the formalities and procedures otherwise associated with testimonial hearsay. Id. at 635. Here, Polson admitted that she was shaken by the robbery, weighing against the conclusion that her request for the tag number or the contractor's response was intended for the purpose of criminal prosecution. Indeed, if the questioning is sufficiently informal, such identity-establishing responses have been held nontestimonial even when they are made to law enforcement. In Osorio, a police sergeant arrived on the scene of a burning building to establish traffic control for the fire department. 81 Cal.Rptr.3d at 175. A firefighter directed the sergeant to a victim in a nearby apartment with a slash injury and apparently in shock. In an exchange that lasted less than two minutes, the sergeant asked the victim what had happened and obtained a description of the victim's assailant, which he broadcast over the police radio. Id. at 175-76. The appellate court held that the trial court properly allowed the individual's responses to [p]reliminary questions asked at the scene of a crime shortly after it ha[d] occurred in an unstructured interaction that bore none of the earmarks of a police interrogation. Id. at 176 (internal quotation omitted). In the case before us, we have a response to one preliminary question asked at a crime scene shortly after the crime occurred, in a setting that was even less formal because law enforcement had not yet arrived on the scene. Again, the fact that the victim asked the question does nothing in our mind to change the responsive statement's nontestimonial status. Finally, these kinds of identity-establishing statements have been admitted into evidence where the declarant provides them directly to the victim without prompting. In State v. Chavez, the owner of a burglarized car received a note from a witness containing a description of the burglar and the license plate number of the burglar's vehicle. 144 N.M. 849, 192 P.3d 1226, 1227 (N.M.Ct.App.2008), cert. denied, 145 N.M. 254, 195 P.3d 1266 (2008). The defendant objected that the description of the burglar (though not the license plate number) was testimonial hearsay but was overruled by the trial court. Id. at 1228. Sustaining defendant's conviction, the appellate court reasoned: [t]he note was intended for the victim, and the use to which it would be put was solely at the victim's discretion. It was not solicited by or given to the police by the declarant, whose only apparent motive was helping the victim ascertain the identity of the thief. Id. at 1229. We have considered a similar analysis in this case, where the contractor wrote down the tag number to help Polson ascertain the identity of the Yorkshire Cleaners robber and gave the number to Polson to use entirely at her discretion. Although Polson solicited the statement and ultimately gave it to the police, the Chavez court based its holding on the facts that the police neither solicited the challenged statement nor received it directly from the declarantfacts which are likewise true in this case. Having considered the factors in our non-exclusive test, all the surrounding circumstances, and factually similar cases decided by other courts, we hold that the written license tag number of a vehicle leaving the parking lot shortly after the robbery occurred and provided by a civilian bystander to the victim was a nontestimonial statement with the primary purpose of responding to a cry for help during an ongoing emergency. The primary purpose was not to establish or prove past events of potential relevance to subsequent criminal prosecution. Therefore, the statement was nontestimonial hearsay, and its admission into evidence did not violate Defendant's state and federal constitutional rights of confrontation.