Opinion ID: 824488
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: confrontation clause jurisprudence

Text: The Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the 14 People v Nunley, 490 Mich 922 (2011). 15 People v Nunley, 490 Mich 965 (2011). 16 People v Jackson, 483 Mich 271, 277; 769 NW2d 630 (2009). 9 witnesses against him . . . .”17 The state of Michigan has at all times “afforded a criminal defendant the right to ‘be confronted with the witnesses against him,’ [by] adopting this language of the federal Confrontation Clause verbatim in every one of our state constitutions.”18 The Confrontation Clause is “primarily a functional right” in which the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses is aimed at truth-seeking and promoting reliability in criminal trials.19 Functioning in this manner, “the principal 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.”20 The specific protections the Confrontation Clause provides apply “only to statements used as substantive evidence.”21 In particular, one of the core protections of the Confrontation Clause concerns hearsay evidence that is “testimonial” in nature.22 The United States Supreme Court has held that the introduction of out-of-court testimonial statements violates the Confrontation Clause; thus, out-of-court testimonial statements 17 US Const, Am VI. 18 People v Fackelman, 489 Mich 515, 525; 802 NW2d 552 (2011), citing Const 1839, art 1, § 10, Const 1850, art 6, § 28, Const 1908, art 2, § 19, and Const 1963, art 1, § 20. 19 Fackelman, 489 Mich at 528-529. 20 Crawford, 541 US at 50. 21 Fackelman, 489 Mich at 528. 22 Crawford, 541 US at 51. 10 are inadmissible unless the declarant appears at trial or the defendant has had a previous opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.23 Addressing what constitutes a testimonial statement, the United States Supreme Court explained in Crawford that “testimony” is a “‘solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.’ An accuser who makes a formal statement to government officers bears testimony in a sense that a person who makes a casual remark to an acquaintance does not.”24 The Court refrained from giving one particular definition of what evidence will constitute a “testimonial statement,” but did provide the following guidance: Various formulations of this core class of “testimonial” statements exist: “ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent—that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially,” “extrajudicial statements . . . contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions,” “statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial[.]” These formulations all share a common nucleus and then define the [Confrontation] Clause’s coverage at various levels of abstraction around it. Regardless of the precise articulation, some statements qualify under any definition—for example, ex parte testimony at a preliminary hearing.[25] In the case at hand, the prosecution moved for the admission of the certificate of mailing without accompanying witness testimony in order to prove the truth of the matter 23 Id. at 53-54. 24 Id. at 51 (citations omitted). 25 Id. at 51-52 (citations omitted; first alteration in original). 11 asserted therein: that defendant was sent notice regarding the revocation of his driver’s license by first-class United States mail as provided in MCL 257.212. Thus, admitting the certificate of mailing would constitute substantive hearsay intended to prove the notice element of DWLS.26 Because the certificate of mailing is properly characterized as substantive hearsay, defendant is entitled to the protections of the Confrontation Clause if the certificate of mailing is indeed testimonial. Although the United States Supreme Court has not specifically addressed whether a certificate of mailing like the one at issue here is testimonial, we will review some of its more recent post-Crawford decisions addressing this question in other contexts, as well as our own recent decision in People v Fackelman.27 In Davis v Washington, the United States Supreme Court considered whether statements made to law enforcement personnel during a 911 call or at a crime scene are testimonial.28 The Court recognized that Crawford had identified “‘[s]tatements taken by police officers in the course of interrogations’” as among the possible formulations of what constitutes a testimonial statement.29 The Court then addressed in what instances police interrogations are testimonial, holding that 26 See MRE 801(c). As a result, even if admitting the certificate of mailing absent accompanying testimony does not violate the Confrontation Clause, the trial court would still need to conclude that it qualifies under a hearsay exception within our rules of evidence for it to be properly admitted. See MRE 802. 27 Fackleman, 489 Mich 515. 28 Davis v Washington, 547 US 813, 817; 126 S Ct 2266; 165 L Ed 2d 224 (2006). 29 Id. at 822, quoting Crawford, 541 US at 52 (alteration in original). 12 [s]tatements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.[30] One of the circumstances the Court examined when making this objective determination in Davis was the formality of the statement.31 Ultimately, the Court ruled that the declarant’s statements identifying her assailant during a 911 call were not testimonial.32 However, in the companion case of Hammon v Indiana,33 the Court ruled that the Hammon declarant’s statements in response to police questioning at the crime scene were testimonial.34 In Melendez-Diaz, the United States Supreme Court considered whether “certificates of analysis” were testimonial when they reported the results of a forensic analysis showing that material seized by the police and connected to the defendant was cocaine.35 The Court characterized the certificates as “quite plainly affidavits,” which fall within the core class of testimonial statements and are defined as “‘declaration[s] of 30 Davis, 547 US at 822. 31 See id. at 827, 830. 32 Id. at 829. 33 Hammon was resolved together with Davis at 547 US 813; 126 S Ct 2266; 165 L Ed 2d 224 (2006). 34 Id. at 830. 35 Melendez-Diaz, 557 US at ___; 129 S Ct at 2530. 13 facts written down and sworn to by the declarant before an officer authorized to administer oaths” and “are incontrovertibly a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.”36 Given that the fact at issue was whether the substance found in the defendant’s possession was, as the prosecution claimed, cocaine, then this was the testimony that the analysts would have been expected to provide if called as witnesses at trial.37 The certificates were thus “functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing ‘precisely what a witness does on direct examination.’”38 In addition, the Court reasoned that the certificates were “made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial,” given that “under Massachusetts law the sole purpose of the [certificates] was to provide prima facie evidence of the composition, quality, and the net weight of the analyzed substance.”39 Further, “the analysts were aware of the [certificates’] evidentiary purpose, since that purpose—as stated in the relevant state-law provision—was reprinted on the [certificates] themselves.”40 36 Id. at ___; 129 S Ct at 2532 (citations and quotation marks omitted; alteration in original). 37 Id. at ___; 129 S Ct at 2532. 38 Id. at ___; 129 S Ct at 2532, quoting Davis, 547 US at 830. 39 Melendez-Diaz, 557 US at ___; 129 S Ct at 2532 (citations and quotation marks omitted). 40 Id. at ___; 129 S Ct at 2532. 14 In Bullcoming v New Mexico, the United States Supreme Court considered whether “the Confrontation Clause permits the prosecution to introduce a forensic laboratory report containing a testimonial certification—made for the purpose of proving a particular fact—through the in-court testimony of a scientist who did not sign the certification or perform or observe the test reported in the certification.”41 The Court rejected the argument that the testimony of a “surrogate” expert was a constitutionally permissible substitute for the testimony of the analyst who had actually conducted the test.42 The Court also rejected the argument that the report was not testimonial, analogizing it to the certificates of analysis in Melendez-Diaz and pointing out that “formalities attending the ‘report of blood alcohol analysis’ are more than adequate to qualify [the analyst’s] assertions as testimonial” and that “[t]he absence of notarization does not remove his certification from Confrontation Clause governance.”43 Further, Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Scalia, rejected the argument that this “unbending application of the Confrontation Clause . . . would impose an undue burden on the prosecution,” reiterating that the Confrontation Clause “‘may not [be] disregard[ed] at . . . our convenience.’”44 41 Bullcoming, 564 US at ___; 131 S Ct at 2710. 42 Id. at ___; 131 S Ct at 2710, 2713. 43 Id. at ___; 131 S Ct at 2717. 44 Id. at ___; 131 S Ct at 2717-2718 (citation omitted; alteration in original). Only Justice Scalia joined part IV of Justice Ginsburg’s opinion, which otherwise constituted the