Opinion ID: 2321139
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: It Was Error to Deprive Smith of the Chance to Present Detective McCloud's Testimony

Text: There also was a dearth of evidence in the record about Gant's level of excitement when he told Detective McCloud that he did not know who stabbed him. To the extent any such evidence existed, Smith was deprived of the chance to present it because of two separate errors on the part of the trial court. First, the court's holding that Gant's statement to Detective McCloud was inadmissible as an excited utterance overlooks Crawford's impact on hearsay analysis. The Supreme Court held in Crawford that `the Confrontation Clause bars the government from introducing testimonial statements at trial against a criminal defendant without calling the declarant to testify in person, unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.' Long v. United States, 940 A.2d 87, 93 (D.C.2007) (quoting Thomas v. United States, 914 A.2d 1, 11 (D.C. 2006)). [A]t a minimum, the definition of testimonial includes police interrogations, Michigan v. Bryant, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1143, 1153, 179 L.Ed.2d 93 (2011) (quotation marks omitted), where the `primary purpose . . . is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.' Id. at 1154 (quoting Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006)). Here, the trial court held that Gant's statement was not an excited utterance because the court believed that it was testimonial: I don't think it's excited utterance. To me it's testimonial, you are telling the police who stabbed you. Even assuming that Gant's statement to Detective McCloud was testimonial, Crawford would not apply because Smith was the party seeking to introduce the statement. The guarantee of the Confrontation Clause, from which Crawford stems, is that `[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him.' Crawford, 541 U.S. at 38, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting U.S. CONST. amend. VI). In this case, because the accused was the party seeking to introduce Gant's statement, the trial court erred by treating the fact that it was made to a police detective as outcome-determinative. Whether Gant's statement to Detective McCloud was testimonial under Crawford was irrelevant, and the trial court should have allowed her to take the stand and testify about her interaction with Gant in sufficient detail for the court to analyze meaningfully the excited-utterance factors listed above. [7] The trial court's second error with respect to Detective McCloud's testimony occurred after Smith argued that Gant's statement to her was admissible as a present sense impression, which is a statement[] describing or explaining events which the declarant is observing at the time he or she makes the declaration or immediately thereafter. Hallums v. United States, 841 A.2d 1270, 1276 (D.C. 2004). The trial court's holding, that the statement was not a present sense impression because Smith was trying to get it in for the truth of the matter asserted therein, was error. The definition of hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted,  Dutch, 997 A.2d at 688 (emphasis added), so understandably Smith's attorney was trying to get it in for its truth by arguing that it fit within the present sense impression exception. Furthermore, when Smith's counsel argued that the statement fit within this exception because [Gant was] making the statement immediately after the event ha[d] happened to him, the trial court cut off her argument by holding: It's testimonial. Denied. Let's move forward. As already explained, whether or not the statement was testimonial was irrelevant, and the trial court should have attempted to determine whether it was admissible as a present sense impression.