Opinion ID: 2180057
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Crawford Argument.

Text: The defendant argues for the first time on appeal that the admission of Cassandra's oral statement to the police violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. [7] The defendant's challenge is based on the very recent United States Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). In Crawford, a criminal case that originated in the State of Washington, a husband and wife each were given Miranda warnings and questioned about their possible involvement in a stabbing. During the interrogation, the wife gave tape-recorded statements implicating her husband in the crime, after which he was charged with assault and attempted murder. At the defendant's state court trial, the wife was called to testify, but she refused, invoking her marital privilege. Crawford, 124 S.Ct. at 1357-58. The prosecution then sought to offer into evidence the wife's statement made during the interrogation as a statement against her penal interest pursuant to Rule 804(b)(3) of the Washington Rules of Evidence. [8] The defendant objected on Sixth Amendment grounds, but the state trial justice admitted the wife's statement, finding it to be trustworthy. [9] After the jury convicted the defendant of assault, he appealed, arguing that the admission of his wife's statement violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. Crawford, 124 S.Ct. at 1358. The case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which was persuaded by the defendant's argument and held that testimonial out-of-court statements of a witness are barred under the Confrontation Clause, unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness. Id. at 1365. [10] Harris now argues (1) that, in view of the Supreme Court's ruling in Crawford, the state should have been prohibited from introducing what Cassandra said to the police on the night of August 6, 2000, and (2) that, without the admission of Cassandra's statement, the state would not have been able to meet its burden of proof at trial. At one point in the trial, defendant did object on hearsay grounds to the prosecution's use of Cassandra's oral statement, and the judge ruled that the statement be stricken. However, in stark contrast with the procedural context in which the statement at issue in Crawford came before the appellate courts, later in the trial of this case, defendant did not object to the hearsay statement at issue on one occasion and defendant's counsel actually introduced the statement himself on more than one occasion. Significantly, defendant chose to employ Cassandra's hearsay evidence for impeachment purposes as part of his cross-examination of a prosecution witness. [11] This Court will review on appeal only those issues that have been properly preserved in the court below. [12] See, e.g., State v. Saluter, 715 A.2d 1250, 1258 (R.I.1998) (It is axiomatic that `this court will not consider an issue raised for the first time on appeal that was not properly presented before the trial court.') (quoting State v. Gatone, 698 A.2d 230, 242 (R.I.1997)); State v. Long, 488 A.2d 427, 432 (R.I.1985) (A party who fails to assert his specific objections is deemed to have waived his rights on appeal.). When the issue is evidentiary, Rule 103(a)(1) of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence specifically provides that a finding of error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits    evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected, and    a timely objection or motion to strike appears of record, stating the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context. [13] It is well established in Rhode Island and in other jurisdictions that a defendant may not complain of testimony on appeal when such testimony was brought out by defendant himself or herself on cross-examination. State v. DeWolfe, 121 R.I. 676, 683 n. 5, 402 A.2d 740, 744 n. 5 (1979) (holding that defendant may not complain on appeal of testimony about his previous drug activities when such evidence was either brought out by defendant on direct examination, or brought out by defendant on cross-examination); see also United States v. Garcia-Morales, 382 F.3d 12, 18 n. 1 (1st Cir.2004) (stating that the defendant cannot complain about a witness's responses to the defendant's own cross-examination questions); Mills v. State, 28 Md.App. 300, 345 A.2d 127, 134 (Spec.App.1975) (holding that error cannot be asserted where the evidence whose admission constitutes the alleged error is elicited by appellant's counsel). Having chosen to use Cassandra's statement in his cross-examination of both Officers Scully and Calouro, defendant waived any right that he arguably may have had under the Confrontation Clause with respect to that statement.