Opinion ID: 1945660
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Guiding Principles for Confrontation-Clause Analysis.

Text: The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees 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 Supreme Court has held that only testimonial statements of the sort that cause the declarant to be a `witness' within the meaning of the Confrontation Clause are subject to the constraints of this constitutional provision. Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 2273, 165 L.Ed.2d 224, 237 (2006). If a hearsay statement made by a declarant who does not appear at trial is testimonial, evidence of that statement is not admissible under the Confrontation Clause unless the declarant is unavailable to testify at trial and the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53-54, 124 S.Ct. at 1365, 158 L.Ed.2d at 194; accord State v. Bentley, 739 N.W.2d 296, 298 (Iowa 2007). Thus, as we have recently noted, the fighting Confrontation Clause issue with respect to admission of hearsay is whether the underlying statements should be considered `testimonial' or `nontestimonial.' State v. Shipley, 757 N.W.2d 228, 235 (Iowa 2008). The State bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that a challenged hearsay statement is nontestimonial. Bentley, 739 N.W.2d at 298. Although the Supreme Court has stated 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, it has not provided a comprehensive definition of what constitutes testimony or of what statements are testimonial. Nonetheless, in Shipley, we gleaned the following guidance from the Court's Crawford decision: [T]he Court indicated that, at a minimum, there were four types of evidence that met the definition of testimonial: grand jury testimony, preliminary hearing testimony, former trial testimony, and statements resulting from police interrogation. These are the types of evidence with the closest kinship to historical abuses at which the Confrontation Clause was directed. In addition to these four categories of evidence, the Supreme Court provided three formulations to aid courts in determining whether other types of statements are testimonial. The first formulation involved ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent where the declarant would reasonably expect the statements to be used at trial and where the defendant was unable to cross-examine the declarant. The second formulation involved formalized testimonial materials such as confessions and depositions. The third and most open-ended formulation included statements made under circumstances that would lead witnesses to objectively believe the statements might be used at trial. Shipley, 757 N.W.2d at 236 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51-52, 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1364, 1374, 158 L.Ed.2d at 193, 203).