Opinion ID: 2149046
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Markovetz's Testimony.

Text: The Confrontation Clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions guarantee to Wells the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. U.S. Const. amend. VI; Iowa Const. art. I, § 10. A testimonial out-of-court statement made by a declarant who is unavailable to testify is inadmissible if the defendant has not had an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 53-54, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 1365, 158 L.Ed.2d 177, 194 (2004). Wells contends L.M.'s out-of-court statements identifying him as the person with whom she had sexual relations were testimonial and therefore inadmissible because L.M. was unavailable to testify and he had no opportunity to cross-examine her. Even if we assume, without deciding, that L.M.'s statements were testimonial, we find their admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Cf. State v. Simmons, 714 N.W.2d 264, 275 (Iowa 2006). [T]he admission of [hearsay] in violation of the Confrontation Clause does not mandate reversal. State v. Newell, 710 N.W.2d 6, 25 (Iowa 2006). Reversal is not required if the State establishes that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. (citing State v. Brown, 656 N.W.2d 355, 361 (Iowa 2003)). To determine harmlessness, the inquiry `is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict surely would have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error.' Id. (quoting Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182, 189 (1993)). We conclude the guilty verdict in this case was surely unattributable to Markovetz's recounting of L.M.'s statement that she had sex with Wells. The jury was presented with DNA evidence that overwhelmingly established Wells's guilt; in fact, the likelihood that someone other than Wells deposited the foreign DNA found in L.M.'s body is less than one in one hundred billion. We reject Wells's contention that the reliability of the DNA evidence was called into serious question. The buccal swabs harvested from Wells were accurately marked with the correct spelling of Wells's name, Lorant Wells, and were placed by the detective in an envelope bearing the police file number assigned to Wells's case. The same detective who harvested Wells's DNA on those swabs testified at trial, stating he correctly labeled the swabs and simply misspelled Wells's first name when he completed a related evidence form. The detective identified Wells at trial as the person from whom the swabs in question were harvested. We are consequently satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt under the circumstances of this case that the guilty verdict was surely unattributable to Markovetz's recounting of L.M.'s identification of Wells as the person with whom she had sexual relations. The verdict was surely attributable instead to DNA evidence that overwhelmingly established Wells's guilt. Accordingly, we conclude the State met its burden to prove the error, if any, resulting from the admission of L.M.'s statements through the testimony of Markovetz was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Wells's contention that the district court committed reversible error by admitting L.M.'s statements in violation of the hearsay rule, Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.802, is also vulnerable to a prejudice analysis. Even if we assume, without deciding, that the hearsay rule prohibited the admission of L.M.'s statements, the error was harmless. Because the admission of the evidence was harmless under the standard applied to the claimed constitutional error, it was also harmless under the standard applied to admission of hearsay in violation of the hearsay rule. State v. Martin, 704 N.W.2d 665, 673 (Iowa 2005) (`In cases of nonconstitutional error, reversal is required if it appears the complaining party has suffered a miscarriage of justice or his rights have been injuriously affected.' (quoting State v. Moorehead, 699 N.W.2d 667, 672 (Iowa 2005))).