Court Opinion

ID: 9860195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:14:04.533975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:18:56.724316
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE NEVILLE, dissenting: The majority cites Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177, 124 S. Ct. 1354 (2004), as authority for its decision, but the majority misconstrued and failed to follow the holding of Crawford when it affirmed the defendant’s conviction and predicated his conviction on the extrajudicial statements of a three-year-old minor. The minor’s statements were admitted into evidence through her mother and a police investigator but the minor was never subjected to cross-examination. Therefore, because the majority failed to follow Crawford, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision. In this case, the majority affirmed the defendant’s conviction for predatory sexual assault of a child. The majority’s decision violates Crawford because the trial court predicated the defendant’s conviction on a three-year-old minor’s extrajudicial statements which the trial court found to be “reliable.” Prior to the trial, the State filed a pretrial motion for a hearing pursuant to section 115 — 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The State’s motion requested that the trial court examine the “time, content and circumstances” of the three-year-old minor’s statements to her mother and a police investigator to determine if the statements were sufficiently “reliable” to be admitted into evidence. After a hearing where the three-year-old minor’s mother and the investigator testified, the trial court considered the statements (daddy kissed me, pinched me and touched me) attributed to the three-year-old minor by her mother and the investigator and found the three-year-old minor’s hearsay statements “reliable.” When trying to determine if the three-year-old minor was available to testify, the trial judge stated “I don’t generally feel that a five year old is competent to testify anyway.” Then the trial judge stated that he was unable to find the three-year-old “competent” or “incompetent,” just unavailable. At the trial, the parties stipulated to the three-year-old minor’s extrajudicial statements that were admitted into evidence through her mother and the police investigator at the section 115 — 10 hearing, and the defendant was convicted and sentenced to the Illinois Department of Corrections. The record establishes that the trial court admitted the three-year-old minor’s statements pursuant to section 115 — 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (725 ILCS 5/115 — 10 (West 2000)). Section 115 — 10 provides that in a prosecution for a sexual act perpetrated against a child under the age of 13, the testimony of the child’s out-of-court statements describing any complaint of such act or matter or detail pertaining to such act is an element of the charged offense and is admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule. 725 ILCS 5/115 — 10 (West 2000). It should be noted, however, that section 115 — 10 provides that such testimony is only admissible (1) if the court finds at a pretrial hearing that the time, content and circumstances of the statement provide sufficient safeguards of reliability, and (2) if the child either testifies at trial or is unavailable as a witness and there is corroborative evidence of the act which is the subject of the statement. 725 ILCS 5/115 — 10 (West 2000). The three-year-old minor’s extrajudicial statements were admitted in evidence after a hearing where the trial court found them reliable and the witness was found to be unavailable. Section 115 — 10, an Illinois exception to the hearsay rule, flies in the face of Crawford. The Crawford Court rejected reliability as the test for determining whether hearsay was admissible, and replaced its prior reliability test with a cross-examination or confrontation test. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 203, 124 S. Ct. at 1374. The Crawford Court specifically stated: “[W]e do not think 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.’ *** Admitting statements deemed rehable 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 ***. It commands, not that evidence be rehable, but that reliabihty be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 199, 124 S. Ct. at 1370. Crawford makes it clear that “[wjhere testimonial statements are at issue, the only indicium of reliabihty sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68-69, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 203, 124 S. Ct. at 1374. In my view, Crawford requires courts to use hearsay rules that predicate the admissibility of extrajudicial statements on a cross-examination or confrontation test. In re E.H., 355 Ill. App. 3d 564, 572-75 (2005). Section 115 — 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure violates Crawford by predicating the admissibility of extrajudicial statements on a reliability test. See In re E.H., 355 Ill. App. 3d at 576-77. Therefore, section 115 — 10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is unconstitutional because it violates Crawford by employing a reliability test to determine if extrajudicial statements are admissible. See In re E.H., 355 Ill. App. 3d at 576-77. Consequently, the majority erred by affirming R.F.’s conviction because it was based on a three-year-old minor’s extrajudicial statements which were admitted in evidence and found to be reliable pursuant to an unconstitutional statute (725 ILCS 5/115 — 10 (West 2000)). See In re E.H., 355 Ill. App. 3d at 576-77. The majority also holds that Crawford applies to statements made to governmental officials, but does not apply to statements made to nongovernmental personnel, such as family members or physicians. 355 Ill. App. 3d at 1000. Therefore, according to the majority, the mother’s testimony regarding the minor’s extrajudicial statements was not “testimonial” and was admissible, but the investigator’s testimony regarding the same extrajudicial statements made by the minor was testimonial but was inadmissible. 355 Ill. App. 3d at 1001. Crawford leaves some uncertainty regarding the exact definition of “testimonial” statements. Crawford makes it clear, however, that certain types of hearsay statements, i.e., “[a]n offhand, overheard remark,” may not qualify as statements at which the confrontation clause was directed, but it does apply against “those who ‘bear testimony.’ ” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 192, 124 S. Ct. at 1364. Here, the three-year-old minor bore accusatory testimony because her extrajudicial statements were offered in court by her mother and the investigator to prove the truth of the matter asserted, specifically, that her father sexually assaulted her. In my view, when determining whether extrajudicial statements are testimonial and subject to the confrontation clause, the focus should be on the “nature of the testimony” and whether it implicates the defendant in a crime and not on “the official or unofficial nature” of the person whom the State wants to testify to the declarant’s extrajudicial statements. See In re E.H., 355 Ill. App. 3d at 575; In re T.T., 351 Ill. App. 3d 976, 993 (2004). The minor in this case bore testimony whether her extrajudicial statements, which implicated the defendant in a crime, were introduced in evidence through her mother or the police officer. More importantly, since the minor’s extrajudicial statements were not tested under the crucible of cross-examination, they should have been excluded from evidence and should not have been used to convict the defendant. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51-52, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 193, 124 S. Ct. at 1364. In conclusion, the majority erred when it affirmed the defendant’s conviction in this case because the minor’s extrajudicial statements were used as evidence against the defendant after being admitted pursuant to an unconstitutional statute (725 ILCS 5/115 — 10 (West 2000)). The majority also erred in this case by finding that the minor’s mother’s testimony was nontestimonial, in spite of the fact the minor bore testimony when her extrajudicial statements were repeated in court by her mother and were used to convict her father. The minor’s extrajudicial statements were admitted into evidence without being tested under the crucible of cross-examination. Therefore, it is my considered opinion that Crawford was violated in this case, and I respectfully dissent from the majority’s decision.