Opinion ID: 1293641
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements of Deceased Cab Driver

Text: Prior to trial, the State filed a motion of intent to present evidence of prior statements of unavailable witnesses pursuant to K.S.A. 2004 Supp. 60-460(d)(3). The State sought to admit evidence of a police interview with cab driver Letterman that occurred on December 22, 1982. After a pretrial hearing, the district court found that Letterman (deceased) was unavailable as a witness and the proffered testimony of the officer who interviewed Letterman was admissible hearsay under 60-460(d)(3). Applying Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65 L. Ed. 2d 597, 100 S. Ct. 2531 (1980), and State v. Bratt, 250 Kan. 264 Syl. ¶ 2, 824 P.2d 983 (1992), the court concluded that the proffered evidence possessed a particularized guarantee of trustworthiness, rendering the hearsay statements of Letterman admissible. At trial, over the defendant's hearsay objection, retired police officer James Miller testified that he had interviewed Letterman regarding a fare Letterman picked up at the convenience store a block and a half from the victim's residence around 10:50 p.m. on December 11, 1982. Letterman told him the fare was a white male with short brown hair, in his late twenties or early thirties, 5'9 to 6' tall, medium build, a shadow beard, and his hair was possibly messed up. The man smelled of alcohol, but he did not appear to be intoxicated. The man appeared to be in a hurry because he opened and shut the door fast and spit out the address really fast. The defendant's posttrial motion for a new trial regarding this issue was also denied. No dispute exists in this case that Letterman's statements fall under K.S.A. 2004 Supp. 60-460, which in relevant part provides: Evidence of a statement which is made other than by a witness while testifying at the hearing, offered to prove the truth of the matter stated, is hearsay evidence and inadmissible except: . . . . (d) Contemporaneous statements and statements admissible on ground of necessity generally. A statement which the judge finds was made . . . (3) if the declarant is unavailable as a witness, by the declarant at a time when the matter had been recently perceived by the declarant and while the declarant's recollection was clear and was made in good faith prior to the commencement of the action and with no incentive to falsify or to distort. However, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him or her. This constitutional provision does not preclude the admission of all out-of-court statements. State v. Meeks, 277 Kan. 609, Syl. ¶ 1, 88 P.3d 789 (2004). In determining the admissibility of hearsay exceptions, the court must also consider the requirements of the Confrontation Clause. Barbara, 3 Kansas Law and Practice, Lawyer's Guide to Kansas Evidence, Hearsay § 7.1(B) (3d ed. 2003). The Confrontation Clause can operate to bar admission of evidence that would otherwise be admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule if confrontation requirements (reliability and trustworthiness) are not met. State v. Betts, 272 Kan. 369, 382-83, 33 P.3d 575 (2001). In this case, the district court admitted the hearsay testimony of Letterman based upon this court's analysis in State v. Bailey, 263 Kan. 685, 692-93, 952 P.2d 1289 (1998) (quoting Bratt, 250 Kan. 264, Syl. ¶ 1), and was in large part based upon Roberts, 448 U.S. 56. In Bailey, we found: `The Confrontation Clause operates in two ways when determining the admissibility of hearsay statements. First, the Sixth Amendment establishes a rule of necessity. In the usual case, the prosecution must either produce or demonstrate the unavailability of the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant. Second, once a witness is shown to be unavailable, the witness' statement is admissible only if it bears adequate indicia of reliability. Reliability can be inferred where the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception. If the evidence does not fall within a firmly rooted hearsay exception, the evidence must be excluded absent a showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. ' (Emphasis added.) 263 Kan. at 692-93. However, after trial, the United States Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177, 124 S. Ct. 1354 (2004), substantially altered the Confrontation Clause analysis expressed in Bailey and Roberts. See Meeks, 277 Kan. at 613-14. In Crawford, the Court drew distinctions between testimonial and nontestimonial hearsay evidence, holding: Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers' [constitutional] 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. Where testimonial evidence is as issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. We leave for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of `testimonial.' Whatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a formal trial; and to police interrogations. (Emphasis added.) 541 U.S. at 68. After Crawford was decided, this court considered in Meeks whether the district court erred in admitting into evidence a shooting victim's response to the investigating officer's question of who had shot him under hearsay exception 60-460(d)(3). We summarized Crawford as holding that witnesses' out-of-court statements that are testimonial are barred under the Confrontation Clause unless (1) the witnesses are unavailable and (2) the defendants had prior opportunity to cross-examine those witnesses. In other words, the Roberts standards of admissibility, as used by this court in Bailey, could not apply to testimonial statements, with the possible exception of testimonial dying declarations. Meeks, 277 Kan. at 614 (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 56 n.6). Although the Crawford Court declined to comprehensively define what was meant by testimonial statements, it did describe one formulation as `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.' 541 U.S. at 51-52. The Court found that [s]tatements taken by police officers in the course of interrogations are also testimonial under even a narrow standard, stressing that various forms of interrogations exist. It concluded that the defendant's wife's recorded statement, knowingly given in response to structured police questioning, qualified as an interrogation under any conceivable definition. 541 U.S. at 52-53 and n.4. In Meeks, the first officer to the scene asked the victim who had shot him and the victim responded, Meeks shot me. Minutes later, the victim fell unconscious and subsequently died. Although we found that we need not determine whether the response was testimonial because Meeks had forfeited his right to confrontation by killing the witness, we did note that the officer was arguably conducting an interrogation when he asked [the victim] if he knew who shot him, thus making the response testimonial. 277 Kan. at 614. Applying Crawford and Meeks to this case, Officer Miller's interview with witness Letterman conducted during the police investigation resulted in statements that an objective witness would think would be used for trial and could arguably be construed as a police interrogation. Applying the Crawford test when testimonial evidence is at issue, the Sixth Amendment demands unavailability and prior opportunity for cross-examination. Letterman's death rendered him unavailable, and the defense did not have a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. As such, the district court erred in admitting evidence of Letterman's testimonial hearsay statements made during the police interview through the testimony of Officer Miller. The State concedes that the admission of the hearsay statements was a violation of the Confrontation Clause in light of Crawford ; however, it contends the violation was harmless error. Although the Crawford Court did not perform a harmless error analysis, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that Confrontation Clause violations under Crawford are subject to a harmless error analysis. See Brown v. Uphoff, 381 F.3d 1219 (10th Cir. 2004). In State v. Atkinson, 276 Kan. 920, Syl. ¶ 6, 80 P.3d 1143 (2003), this court set forth the following inquiry for violations of the Confrontation Clause: Violation of the Confrontation Clause is subject to a [federal] harmless-error analysis. The correct inquiry is whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized, a reviewing court might nonetheless say that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Factors to be considered include the importance of the witness' testimony in the prosecution's case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution's case. The State argues the hearsay error was harmless, reasoning: (1) The testimony took up little more than 1 page out of over 400 pages of trial transcript, (2) half of the statements were cumulative because they reiterated the testimony of Edward French and the business records of the cab company establishing that Letterman picked up a fare at the convenience store, (3) the uncorroborated testimony was not particularly important because it referred only to a general description of the man and that he seemed to be in a hurry, and (4) none of the statements directly implicated the defendant. Applying the Atkinson factors to this case, the testimony was important because it inferred that the cab driver picked up someone who matched the defendant's general description from a convenience store near the victim's home and the man was rushed and disheveled. Part of this testimony was cumulative, however, as the business records established that Letterman had picked up a fare at the convenience store. While the deceased witness was unable to testify, the defense was able to cross-examine Officer Miller about the fact that he did not ask Letterman if the fare had waited inside or outside in the light or shadows, about the number of fares he had driven that evening, how long his shift was or if he had a second job, whether he had been drinking that evening, or whether he wore glasses. In this manner, the defense was able to attack the credibility of the testimony in some manner. Ultimately, as the State points out, the defendant's convictions relied not upon a few lines of hearsay from a deceased cab driver but upon the overwhelming DNA evidence and the testimonies of live witnesses putting the defendant in the right places at the right times. The admission of a few hearsay statements from the police interview with Letterman, while a violation of the Confrontation Clause, constituted harmless error under facts of this case.