Opinion ID: 887762
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Crawford Rejected Multi-Factored Reliability and Trustworthiness Balancing

Text: ¶ 142 The Crawford Court did not directly rule on the vitality of the hearsay exception at issue in the case at bar  the excited utterance exception, Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid. Briefly, this hearsay exception provides that an excited utterance is not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness. The Rule defines an excited utterance as [a] statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition. Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid. ¶ 143 We have allowed excited utterance testimony because [t]he guarantee of trust-worthiness is provided by the spontaneity of the statement, caused by the excitement `... which temporarily stills the capacity of reflection and produces utterances free of conscious fabrication.' State v. Hamby, 1999 MT 319, ¶ 26, 297 Mont. 274, ¶ 26, 992 P.2d 1266, ¶ 26 (ellipsis in original) (emphasis added). See also Idaho v. Wright (1990), 497 U.S. 805, 820, 110 S.Ct. 3139, 3149, 111 L.Ed.2d 638 (The basis for the `excited utterance' exception, for example, is that such statements are given under circumstances that eliminate the possibility of fabrication, coaching, or confabulation, and that therefore the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement provide sufficient assurance that the statement is trustworthy and that cross-examination would be superfluous.). In other words, excited utterances are the Oh my God, that truck just hit that child! type of statement. The State's counsel conceded at oral argument that the excited utterance exception is premised on guarantees of trustworthiness. ¶ 144 Crawford, by contrast, dealt with the hearsay exception involving statements against interest. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 40, 124 S.Ct. at 1358. This exception allows the admission of a hearsay statement if the declarant is unavailable as a witness and the statement was, at the time of its making, against the declarant's interest. See Wash. Rule Evid. 804(b)(3). A statement against interest includes one which tend[s] to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability. Wash. Rule Evid. 804(b)(3). [41] ¶ 145 Like the excited utterance exception, the statement against interest exception is rooted in guarantees of trustworthiness. See State v. Whelchel (1990), 115 Wash.2d 708, 801 P.2d 948, 952 ([H]earsay statements against penal interest are admissible if ... corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the statement's trustworthiness.  The inquiry into trustworthiness ensures that the proffered evidence offers some reliability in terms of the declarant's perception, memory, and credibility  a function traditionally performed by cross examination.) (emphasis added). See also Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(3), advisory committee's notes (The rule defines those statements which are considered to be against interest and thus of sufficient trustworthiness to be admissible even though hearsay.) (emphasis added). [42] The fact that these two hearsay exceptions are both grounded in guarantees of trustworthiness is important because of how the Crawford Court analyzed this particular basis for admitting hearsay evidence. ¶ 146 As discussed above, the Supreme Court drew two inferences about the meaning of the Sixth Amendment from the common law tradition and development of the right of confrontation. First, the Court determined that the principle evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused. Second, the Court concluded that the Framers would not have allowed admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify and the accused had had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. ¶ 147 The Court then proceeded to discuss its case law, which has been largely consistent with these two principles. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 57, 124 S.Ct. at 1367. One exception, the Court noted, was White v. Illinois (1992), 502 U.S. 346, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848: One case arguably in tension with the rule requiring a prior opportunity for cross-examination when the proffered statement is testimonial is White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992), which involved, inter alia, statements of a child victim to an investigating police officer admitted as spontaneous declarations. It is questionable whether testimonial statements would ever have been admissible on that ground in 1791; to the extent the hearsay exception for spontaneous declarations existed at all, it required that the statements be made immediat[ely] upon the hurt received, and before [the declarant] had time to devise or contrive any thing for her own advantage. In any case, the only question presented in White was whether the Confrontation Clause imposed an unavailability requirement on the types of hearsay at issue. The holding did not address the question whether certain of the statements, because they were testimonial, had to be excluded even if the witness was unavailable. We [took] as a given... that the testimony properly falls within the relevant hearsay exceptions. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 58 n. 8, 124 S.Ct. at 1368 n. 8 (alterations in original) (citations omitted). Thus, the Court concluded, [o]ur cases have ... remained faithful to the Framers' understanding: Testimonial statements of witnesses absent from trial have been admitted only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 59, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. ¶ 148 However, while the results of the Court's decisions had generally been faithful to the original meaning of the Confrontation Clause, the same could not be said of the Court's rationales. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. The Court noted that Roberts conditions the admissibility of all hearsay evidence on whether it falls under a firmly rooted hearsay exception or bears particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. Because this approach departed from the historical principles discussed above, the Court criticized the test in two respects. First, the test is too broad, as it applies the same mode of analysis whether or not the hearsay consists of ex parte testimony. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. At the same time, the test is too narrow, in that it admits statements that do consist of ex parte testimony upon a mere finding of reliability. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. This malleable standard, the Court explained, often fails to protect against paradigmatic confrontation violations. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369. ¶ 149 Observing that none of the [historical] authorities discussed above acknowledges any general reliability exception to the common-law [right of confrontation], the Court expressed doubt that the Framers meant to leave the Sixth Amendment's protection to the vagaries of the rules of evidence, much less to amorphous notions of `reliability.' Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. The Court explained that [a]dmitting statements deemed reliable by a judge is fundamentally at odds with the right of confrontation. To be sure, the Clause's ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. The Clause thus reflects a judgment, not only about the desirability of reliable evidence (a point on which there could be little dissent), but about how reliability can best be determined. The Roberts test allows a jury to hear evidence, untested by the adversary process, based on a mere judicial determination of reliability. It thus replaces the constitutionally prescribed method of assessing reliability with a wholly foreign one. In this respect, it is very different from exceptions to the Confrontation Clause that make no claim to be a surrogate means of assessing reliability[for example, the rule of forfeiture by wrongdoing]. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61-62, 124 S.Ct. at 1370 (citations omitted). ¶ 150 It is noteworthy that the Court did not simply dismiss Roberts at this point as an aberration. Rather, the Court continued to lambast the Roberts test, focusing on its demonstrated inability to protect the right of confrontation. The legacy of Roberts in other courts vindicates the Framers' wisdom in rejecting a general reliability exception [to the right of confrontation]. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. Reliability is an amorphous, if not entirely subjective concept; as a result, [t]he [ Roberts ] framework is so unpredictable that it fails to provide meaningful protection from even core confrontation violations. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. ¶ 151 The Court then cited numerous examples of hearsay statements being admitted pursuant to Roberts. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63-65, 124 S.Ct. at 1371-72. Of particular interest to the case at hand, the Colorado Supreme Court in one case [43] found a statement more reliable because it was given immediately after the events at issue, while that same court in another case [44] found a statement more reliable because two years had elapsed. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. As these cases illustrate, the admission of hearsay statements pursuant to multi-factored reliability balancing tests is completely unpredictable  e.g., the passage of time makes a statement more reliable in one case and less reliable in another. ¶ 152 At this point it is necessary to digress from Crawford. As noted above, Crawford did not deal with the hearsay exception at issue here  the excited utterance exception; however, White did deal with this exception. Among other offenses, White was charged with and convicted of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl. The trial court ruled that testimony recounting the child's statements describing the crime, that was given by her babysitter, her mother, an investigating officer, an emergency room nurse, and a doctor, was admissible under the state-law hearsay exception for spontaneous declarations (and, with respect to the nurse and the doctor, also under the exception for statements made in the course of securing medical treatment). The child never testified, and the trial court made no finding as to her unavailability. White objected to the aforementioned testimony on hearsay grounds. See White, 502 U.S. at 349-51, 112 S.Ct. at 739-40. ¶ 153 The case worked its way to the United States Supreme Court on the issue of whether the Confrontation Clause requires that, before a trial court admits testimony under the spontaneous declaration [45] and medical examination [46] exceptions to the hearsay rule, the prosecution must either produce the declarant at trial or the trial court must find that the declarant is unavailable. See White, 502 U.S. at 348-49, 112 S.Ct. at 739. In affirming the admissibility of the hearsay evidence at issue, the Court relied on Roberts and United States v. Inadi (1986), 475 U.S. 387, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 89 L.Ed.2d 390. [47] ¶ 154 Of particular relevance to the present discussion, the Court reiterated the evidentiary rationale for permitting hearsay testimony regarding spontaneous declarations and statements made in the course of receiving medical care, as follows: such out-of-court declarations are made in contexts that provide substantial guarantees of their trustworthiness. White, 502 U.S. at 355, 112 S.Ct. at 742 (emphasis added). In this regard, the Court observed that these two hearsay exceptions were firmly rooted  meaning they carry sufficient indicia of reliability to satisfy the reliability requirement posed by the Confrontation Clause  because they were long-standing exceptions, were recognized in the Federal Rules of Evidence, and were widely accepted among the States. See White, 502 U.S. at 355 n. 8, 112 S.Ct. at 742 n. 8. Given that a statement that qualifies for admission under a `firmly rooted' hearsay exception is so trustworthy that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to its reliability, the Court ultimately declined to exclud[e] from trial, under the aegis of the Confrontation Clause, evidence embraced within such exceptions to the hearsay rule as those for spontaneous declarations and statements made for medical treatment. White, 502 U.S. at 357, 112 S.Ct. at 743. ¶ 155 Returning now to Crawford, the Supreme Court soundly and specifically rejected each of the foregoing rationales on which the White Court relied in upholding testimony offered under the spontaneous declaration (excited utterance) and medical examination exceptions  i.e., that these two exceptions carry sufficient indicia of reliability in that they are firmly rooted and, therefore, that statements admitted pursuant to these exceptions are so trustworthy that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to [their] reliability. It follows, therefore, that hearsay evidence grounded in the excited utterance exception is inadmissible (for the purpose of establishing the truth of the matter asserted) after Crawford for the simple reason that the Court rejected the underpinnings of that exception  guarantees of trustworthiness. ¶ 156 Restated, in White the Court observed that the admissibility of spontaneous declarations is grounded in the reliability of such statements and, in particular, their substantial guarantees of trustworthiness. See White, 502 U.S. at 355 & n. 8, 112 S.Ct. at 742 & n. 8. Yet, as explained in Crawford, the Framers rejected a general reliability exception to the right of confrontation. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. Thus, any argument that excited utterances should be admitted on the ground that they bear particularized guarantees of trustworthiness or fall within a firmly rooted hearsay exception (the two ways in which an out-of-court statement may be deemed to have adequate indicia of reliability under Roberts, see Crawford, 541 U.S. at 42, 124 S.Ct. at 1359) was completely discredited in Crawford's flat out rejection of this sort of approach and its overruling of the Roberts decision. ¶ 157 The majority agrees with this conclusion where testimonial statements are at issue, see ¶ 31 ( Crawford does disallow the use of hearsay exceptions based on indicia of reliability as the basis to admit hearsay statements ... in the context of testimonial statements.); but, with respect to nontestimonial statements, the majority claims that this dissent paints with too broad a brush because  Crawford does not expressly or impliedly supersede the rules of evidence as they relate to nontestimonial evidence, ¶ 31. The majority reads Crawford too narrowly. ¶ 158 First, prior to setting forth the concept of a testimonial approach to the right of confrontation, the Court expressly severed Confrontation Clause analysis from the law of evidence, which had been the approach under Roberts. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 50-51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364 ([W]e once again reject the view ... that [the Confrontation Clause's] application to out-of-court statements introduced at trial depends upon `the law of Evidence for the time being.' Leaving the regulation of out-of-court statements to the law of evidence would render the Confrontation Clause powerless to prevent even the most flagrant inquisitorial practices.) (citations omitted). Thus, if we accept that the right of confrontation applies to both testimonial and nontestimonial statements  which the majority, in a moment of lucidity, does, see ¶¶ 32-34 (subjecting Debra's statements to Grove to federal Confrontation Clause scrutiny after concluding that those statements are nontestimonial)  then the majority is incorrect in its assertion that Crawford does not ... supersede the rules of evidence as they relate to nontestimonial evidence. ¶ 159 Second, as support for the proposition that  Crawford does not expressly or impliedly supersede the rules of evidence as they relate to nontestimonial evidence, ¶ 31, the majority quotes the following statement from Crawford: Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers' design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law  as does Roberts, and as would an approach that exempted such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374. See ¶ 31. It is not clear from this language whether the Court is in fact affording the States such flexibility and suggesting two possible approaches  Roberts, or exempting nontestimonial statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether  or whether such flexibility is the inevitable result of the Crawford holding to be made explicit in a subsequent opinion. ¶ 160 The majority concludes that the language carries even more weight  specifically, that it requires courts to continue analyzing nontestimonial hearsay pursuant to the Roberts reliability standard until the Supreme Court expressly overrule[s] Roberts.  ¶ 31. See also ¶ 32. Contrary to the majority's interpretation, however, a careful reading of the sentence reveals only that Roberts afford[s] the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law. This is not an admonition that nontestimonial hearsay [be] analyzed pursuant to the Roberts reliability standard. ¶ 31. Rather, the most that can be gleaned from the Court's language is that it was not deciding what approach is mandated by the Confrontation Clause with respect to nontestimonial statements. More informative in this regard is the Court's suggestion elsewhere in the Crawford opinion that Roberts actually does not apply to such hearsay. Specifically, the Court stated that its analysis (in Crawford ) casts doubt on the first holding of White, which was that the Confrontation Clause (and, thus, the Roberts framework itself which, at the time of White, was the accepted method of reviewing Confrontation Clause challenges) applies to all hearsay, whether testimonial or nontestimonial. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1369-70; White, 502 U.S. at 352-53, 112 S.Ct. at 740-41. In other words, it appears that the federal right of confrontation may not reach nontestimonial statements. ¶ 161 Until the Supreme Court makes such a limitation explicit, however, it is appropriate to continue applying the Clause to nontestimonial statements. As noted above, the majority does so, see ¶¶ 32-34; however, it errs in defaulting  or, perhaps more accurately, regressingto the Roberts framework, see ¶¶ 31-33. The purported basis for its decision to do so is the following quote from Agostini v. Felton (1997), 521 U.S. 203, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391: [i]f a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions, 521 U.S. at 237, 117 S.Ct. at 2017 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). See ¶ 31. Applying this directive, however, first requires a determination of whether Roberts has direct application in or directly controls this case. It seems, therefore, that the majority has assumed the very conclusion it seeks to prove with the foregoing citationi.e., that Roberts applies to nontestimonial statements. ¶ 162 Furthermore, Roberts does not appear[] to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions; rather, Roberts itself was rejected, and in the same line of Confrontation Clause decisions. Thus, the majority's assertion that Roberts applies to Debra's purportedly nontestimonial statements only begs the question why Roberts is an adequate safeguard of the right of confrontation where nontestimonial statements are at issue, but not where testimonial statements are at issue. The Roberts test does not somehow become less unpredictable, subjective, and amorphous, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1371, and its standards do not somehow become less [v]ague and manipulable, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1373, simply because the statements at issue are nontestimonial. As such, it defies logic to affirm that nontestimonial statements are subject to federal Confrontation Clause analysis but then to apply to such statements the very framework the Supreme Court rejected in Crawford as an inadequate safeguard of that right. To be intellectually honest in its analysis, the majority should simply concede that, in its view, nontestimonial hearsay statements are exempted from federal Confrontation Clause analysis altogether  an alternative arguably authorized by Crawford, as explained above; see also Flores v. State (Tex.App.Amarillo 2005), 170 S.W.3d 722, 725 & n. 1, and cases cited therein  and that Debra's statements were properly admitted because, in the majority's view, they met the requirements of a recognized hearsay exception. ¶ 163 I do not mean to suggest that I am advocating such a result. To the contrary, rather than exempting nontestimonial statements from Confrontation Clause analysis or applying the Roberts framework to such statements, I believe the proper approach is to assess the hearsay exception at issue  in this case, the excited utterance exceptionin the context of, and with due respect for, Crawford's discussion of the failings of Roberts. In other words, if the basis for our not subjecting nontestimonial hearsay statements to cross-examination at trial is that we feel satisfied that the statements are sufficiently reliable and trustworthy under a Roberts -type of multi-factored balancing  which is, in fact, the current state of affairs  then the time has come to reexamine our comfort level with this unpredictable approach, the failings of which Crawford (and the cases to which the Court cites in Parts V.B. and V.C. of its opinion) makes amply apparent. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63-67, 124 S.Ct. at 1371-73. As the Court explained, the Confrontation Clause reflects a judgment, not only about the desirability of reliable evidence (a point on which there could be little dissent), but about how reliability can best be determined.  Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370 (emphasis added). As the legacy of Roberts demonstrates, leaving reliability determinations to judges who perform open-ended balancing tests rather than to fact-finders who observe a witness's demeanor, body language, etc., under the rigors of cross-examination renders the right of confrontation bereft of any substance. ¶ 164 This approach is not contrary to Crawford. It is true that the statements at issue in that case were not nontestimonial, see Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370 (Sylvia Crawford's statement is testimonial under any definition), but that does not mean that the rationales and reasoning of the Crawford opinion cannot be applied beyond the specific facts of that case. Moreover, the Court itself took the same approach with respect to the hearsay exceptions for business records and for statements in furtherance of a conspiracy, which it noted covered statements that by their nature were not testimonial. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 56, 124 S.Ct. at 1367 (emphasis added). In other words, the specific requirements of these particular hearsay exceptions meant that most statements within them would not meet the definition of testimonial. See Mosteller, Encouraging and Ensuring, at 547. ¶ 165 Similarly, I maintain that if the rationales and requirements for admitting testimony (in a criminal trial to establish the truth of the matter asserted) pursuant to a particular hearsay exception are the same as those for which Crawford expressed unequivocal contempt when it comes to protecting an accused's right to confront the witnesses against himi.e., that the out-of-court statements were made in contexts that provide substantial guarantees of their trustworthiness, White, 502 U.S. at 355, 112 S.Ct. at 742, and that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to [the statements'] reliability, White, 502 U.S. at 357, 112 S.Ct. at 743then the exception cannot stand. ¶ 166 In sum, the Confrontation Clause's ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. Roberts ' multi-factored balancing approach substitutes an amorphous and subjective reliability test for this constitutionally prescribed method of assessing reliability, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62, 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1370, 1371; it incorporates a malleable standard which often fails to protect against paradigmatic confrontation violations, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. at 1369; it establishes a general reliability exception not recognized in the common-law right of confrontation; and, in so doing, it departs from the historical principles on which the Confrontation Clause is grounded. ¶ 167 For these reasons, Roberts ' multi-factored balancing approach must be rejected as a safeguard of an accused's right of confrontation; and statements admitted pursuant to the excited utterance hearsay exception  because they depend for their admission on the same notions of reliability that underlie the Roberts framework  must be barred at trial, unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine her. The facts of the case at bar prove the legitimacy of the concerns articulated by the Crawford Court. It is to that aspect of this case that I now turn. ¶ 168 At the outset, it is important to note that the evidence that Mizenko had assaulted Debra was disputed; in other words, this is not a case where the evidence of the assault was uncontradicted. Furthermore, the State relied almost entirely (particularly regarding the identity of the perpetrator of Debra's injuries) on Grove's, King's, and Buennemeyer's testimony, which repeated Debra's hearsay statements accusing Mizenko of the assault. Indeed, the prosecutor summed up the case as follows: So given all the evidence, I told you it's a simple case. It is. If you believe what [Debra] told people that night, you need to find him guilty. Thank you. (Emphasis added.) In addition, Deputy Buennemeyer conceded that other than what he had heard from Debra and from the dispatcher (hearsay within hearsay), he could not tell whether the hair which was entered in evidence came from Debra brushing her hair (as testified to by Mizenko) or from being pulled out. ¶ 169 Thus, the hearsay statements supported the State's theory of the crime, and that was the only reason they were offeredas evidence of Mizenko's commission of the facts proving he assaulted Debra. That theory was disputed not only by Mizenko (who claimed that there was no physical assault, only a verbal argument) but also by Debra, who had changed her story and had so informed the prosecutor in writing prior to the commencement of the trial. See note 5, supra. [48] ¶ 170 This is a perfect example of why the right of confrontation and cross-examination is an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country's constitutional goal. Pointer v. Texas (1965), 380 U.S. 400, 405, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1068, 13 L.Ed.2d 923. It is why [c]ross-examination is the hallmark of our system of justice  it produces truth through [s]uch things as the demeanor of a witness, his or her body language, and a witness's hesitancy in giving testimony, [which] often communicate as much to the fact-finder as the spoken words. State v. Clark, 1998 MT 221, ¶ 23, 290 Mont. 479, ¶ 23, 964 P.2d 766, ¶ 23. It is why in Montana the accused has the fundamental constitutional right to confront his accuser face to face. Art. II, Sec. 24, Mont. Const. It is why the constitutionally prescribed method of assessing the reliability of hearsay evidence is not a multi-factored, open-ended balancing test, but rather confrontation and cross-examination. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61-62, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. ¶ 171 Nevertheless, the District Court admitted Debra's statements through Grove, King, and Buennemeyer under the excited utterance exception. In affirming this ruling, the majority relies in part on State v. Cameron, 2005 MT 32, 326 Mont. 51, 106 P.3d 1189 ( see ¶ 33); but Cameron actually demonstrates why admitting hearsay statements on the basis of their reliability and trustworthiness was soundly rejected in Crawford. ¶ 172 In Cameron, the trial record was silent as to why the prosecutor offered the victim's statement and as to why the court admitted it. Cameron, ¶ 31. On appeal, the State came up with the theory that the victim's statement had been an excited utterance. We [49] agreed and affirmed the District Court for reaching the right result, though for an unspecified reason. See Cameron, ¶¶ 31-35, 37. ¶ 173 Historically, the excited utterance exception admitted statements made  immediat[ely] upon the hurt received, and before [the declarant] had time to devise or contrive any thing for her own advantage. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 58 n. 8, 124 S.Ct. at 1368 n. 8 (alterations in original) (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also State v. Hamby, 1999 MT 319, ¶ 26, 297 Mont. 274, ¶ 26, 992 P.2d 1266, ¶ 26 ([T]he excited utterance exception relies on the spontaneity of the statement caused by the excitement of the event.) (emphasis added); State v. Caryl (1975), 168 Mont. 414, 431, 543 P.2d 389, 398 (Declarations made while the mind of the speaker is laboring under the excitement aroused by the accident, before there was time to reflect and fabricate, ....) (emphasis added); 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1749, at 199 (Chadbourn rev. 1976) (The utterance, it is commonly said, must be `spontaneous,' `natural,' `impulsive,' `instinctive,' `generated by an excited feeling which extends without let or breakdown from the moment of the event they illustrate.'). ¶ 174 For instance, in In re S.M., 2001 MT 11, 304 Mont. 102, 19 P.3d 213, we affirmed the admission of a five-year-old declarant's hearsay statement (that she was frightened upon seeing her abuser) because the statement related to a startling event  suddenly being confronted by [her abuser], S.M., ¶ 24; and she made it  upon seeing her abuser, S.M., ¶ 24 (emphasis added),  while she was perceiving [the] startling event and while she was under the stress of the excitement caused by that event, S.M., ¶ 22 (emphases added), and  before [she] had time to reflect, S.M., ¶ 24 (emphasis added). (We also found the statement to be admissible under the present sense impression and the then-existing mental, emotional, or physical condition exceptions. See S.M., ¶¶ 23-24.) By contrast, the Cameron Court determined that a statement made an hour or two after an alleged assault qualified as an excited utterance. This conclusion was justified by [f]urther circumstances, which the Court deemed relevant to resolution of this issuein particular, the declarant wept from the moment she left [the defendant's trailer] until well after she uttered the hearsay statement, and, as she arrived home, the declarant showed no sign of diminished excitement. Cameron, ¶ 34. ¶ 175 While these [f]urther circumstances may indeed suggest that the declarant was still laboring under the stress of excitement caused by the attack, Cameron, ¶ 34, they cannot be allowed to eclipse the crucial factor respecting the trustworthiness of excited utterances: time to reflect and fabricate. After the alleged attack, the declarant had to travel roughly eight miles on foot for an hour or two. Cameron, ¶ 33. To assert that her capacity to reflect on the attack was stilled during this entire walk/run is disingenuous. Undoubtedly, she was upset during this period, but this fact does not establish that her statements were in fact free of conscious fabrication. ¶ 176 The Court also cited with approval various excited utterance cases from other jurisdictions that allowed statements made up to three and a half hours, two to three hours, hours, and one to several hours after the respective incidents. See Cameron, ¶ 36. Yet, this only further illustrates the Court's either/or approach to excited utterances: an excited utterance is trustworthy if the statement was made either while the mind of the speaker is laboring under the excitement aroused by the accident or before there was time to reflect and fabricate. Contrary to Cameron, however, these two requirements are conjunctive, not disjunctive. See Hamby, ¶ 26; Caryl, 168 Mont. at 431, 543 P.2d at 398. As a result, Cameron cuts the excited utterance exception loose from its moorings. [50] ¶ 177 The fact is that there is nothing immediate or spontaneous about the statements made in Cameron and in the cases on which it relies, and the same is true of the case at bar. As described above, Grove testified that she observed the Mizenkos arrive by car at their home at approximately 4:00 P.M. and that at approximately 5:00 P.M., Debra appeared at her door, with a large dog, visibly upset and with a wound on her cheek or jaw. Grove had no recollection of Debra crying. Grove testified that [Debra] asked me to call 911, and Carol Richard, she said that her husband had been drinking and was trying to hurt her. The majority finds it sufficient that these statements to Grove were made a short time after the startling event, ¶ 34; however, the record establishes that the alleged assault occurred up to 60 minutes prior to Debra's statements to Grove, and there is no evidence that Debra's capacity for reflection was stilled during this entire time. 911 operator King, for her part, testified that the person with whom she spoke said that [Mizenko] hit her, pushed her down and ... had pullen [sic] out her hair, and that [s]he wanted him arrested. This excited utterance testimony was relayed to King at about 5:30 P.M. And Buennemeyer recounted Debra's excited utterances that had occurred even later still and included her taking the deputy around the home and excited[ly] pointing out evidence of the alleged assault. By this time, however, Debra clearly had had plenty of time to devise or contrive her statements. I do not mean to suggest that she  or the declarant in Cameron, for that matter  in fact did so. Indeed, whether or not Debra contrived her statements is something that should have been probed by Mizenko while Debra was under oath and subject to cross-examination. It is not for the District Judge or for this Court to make the determination that Debra's statements were not contrived, which is the point of this discussion. ¶ 178 Thus, Debra's statements were not excited utterances, at least not within the meaning historically  and logically  ascribed to that term. Nevertheless, the majority claims otherwise, explaining that a lapse of time is not determinative of whether [the stress of excitement caused by a startling event] has subsided. ¶ 33. This explanation misses the point; the question is not whether, at the time she made the statements to Grove, sufficient time had elapsed such that Debra no longer labored under the stress of excitement caused by the startling event (the alleged assault), but rather whether Debra's capacity for reflection was stilled during the entire period between the startling event and the making of the statements, such that the statements were made under the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses [by the stress of nervous excitement], and during the brief period when considerations of self-interest could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection. 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1747, at 195 (Chadbourn rev.1976). While Debra and the victim in Cameron may have been upset, there is no evidence that they did not engage in reflective thought prior to making the statements at issue; clearly, they each had ample time to do so. Cameron was wrongly decided. ¶ 179 Be that as it may, the point to be made is this: different courts  and even different judges on the same court (as the foregoing discussions of Cameron and the case at hand illustrate)  often reach different reliability determinations on the same facts. This is the inevitable result of admitting hearsay testimony pursuant to an unpredictable reliability test. Reliability is an amorphous, if not entirely subjective, concept. There are countless factors bearing on whether a statement is reliable. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. The right of confrontation cannot be left to the vagaries of such a system. ¶ 180 All of Debra's statements were admitted under a hearsay exception, the underpinnings of which  reliability and trust-worthiness balancing the Supreme Court condemned in Crawford. Mizenko was denied his fundamental right to a fair trial because the State was allowed to build its case on hearsay evidence that was not tested in the crucible of cross-examination and by the adversary process, but rather was based on a mere judicial determination of reliability. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. Because the District Court dispensed with confrontation on the premise that the excited utterance testimony was obviously reliable, the court effectively dispensed with the trial because Mizenko was obviously guilty. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1371 (Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty.). ¶ 181 Indeed, in summarily denying Mizenko's motion to dismiss, the District Court actually did find the defendant guilty. Specifically, the judge stated: The Court would find that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that there was an injury that she suffered and that the Defendant did it. Obviously, when a victim does not appear, you are unable to confront her, but you certainly questioned those people who had contact with her, and whether you planted that out in a juror's mind. So the Court finds there is a basis for the matter to proceed. We will deny the motion and we will send the case to the jury. [Emphasis added.] Mizenko had not even put on his case, yet the court had already found him guilty on the basis of reliable and trustworthy excited utterances that had not been subjected to any adversarial testing whatsoever. And, to add insult to injury, the judge's observation that Mizenko certainly questioned those people who had contact with [Debra] is about as reassuring as telling Raleigh that he was perfectly free to confront those who read Cobham's confession in court. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1371. Nor does Article II, Section 24, of the Montana Constitution.