Court Opinion

ID: 9789254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:32:30.415131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:21.109606
License: Public Domain

COATS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
Travis Clark was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, Loretta Amouak. Amouak's statements to hospital staff that her injuries resulted from an assault by her boyfriend were a key part of the State's evidence against Clark.
According to Amouak's friend, Kimberly Yadon, Amouak borrowed Clark's truck without his permission on the night of the assault, after she had been drinking. Amouak drove the truck into a ditch, miring it in deep snow. Clark and Yadon picked Amouak up and drove her to the house she and Clark shared. Yadon could see that Clark was angry with Amouak, and she was concerned about leaving Amouak alone with him. But Amouak was also angry; after she called Yadon a "slut," Yadon left.
Several hours later, Amouak telephoned Yadon. Amouak was crying and hysterical, *1214and she asked Yadon to pick her up at a store near Amouak's and Clark's residence. When Yadon arrived, she saw that Amouak had a black eye, a bruised face, and a swollen nose. Yadon drove Amousak to the hospital. Because Amouak had been drinking and driving without a valid license, Yadon and Amouak agreed not to tell anyone that Amo-uak had been driving that night. Yadon then called the state troopers to report the assault. According to Amouak's medical ree-ords, Amouak told hospital staff that her boyfriend had assaulted her and that a friend found her in a snowbank after the assault.
During trial, the court admitted, without objection, the medical records pertinent to this incident. Those records documented Amouak's injuries and her statements identifying her boyfriend as her assailant.
Following Yadon's testimony that Amouak had been drinking and driving with a revoked lHcense, District Court Judge Gregory Heath appointed an attorney to advise Amo-uak that she risked incriminating herself if she testified. Following several days of negotiation, the State refused to grant Amouak immunity from prosecution, and Amouak asserted her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
At this point, realizing that Amouak was not going to testify, Clark objected to Amo-uak's previously admitted statements in her medical records that her boyfriend had assaulted her. Clark objected that the statements were inadmissible hearsay and that their admission violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. Judge Heath ruled that Clark had waived these claims by not objecting when the State first offered the medical records.
On appeal, this court concluded that because Clark had not made a timely objection, he waived the right to exclude the statements on hearsay grounds. But we concluded that Clark's Confrontation Clause objection was not untimely because, at the time the court admitted Amouk's medical records, Clark reasonably believed Amouak would testify and that he would have the opportunity to cross-examine her on her statements. We therefore remanded the case and directed the trial court to determine if Clark's confrontation right had been violated.
On remand, following an evidentiary hearing, Judge Heath found that the information contained in the medical records was gathered "solely for purposes of emergency medical evaluation, diagnosis and treatment." Judge Heath concluded that Amouak's statements were not "testimonial" under Crawford v. Washington1 and Davis v. Washington,2 and that their admission did not violate the Confrontation Clause.
Under the Sixth Amendment, an accused in a criminal case has a right to confront the witnesses against him. In Crawford, the United States Supreme Court construed this right as prohibiting the government from introducing the "testimonial" statements of a witness who does not testify at trial unless (1) the government demonstrates that the witness is unavailable to testify and (2) the defendant had a previous opportunity to cross-examine the witness about the hearsay statements.3 - Non-testimonial statements do not implicate the Confrontation Clause and are admissible as long as they fall within a hearsay exception.4
I agree with the majority that the Supreme Court's decisions in the companion cases of Davis and Hammon v. Indiana5 are the most pertinent cases in assessing whether the statements in Amouak's medical ree-ords identifying Clark as her assailant are testimonial under Crawford. But I do not think those cases provide a clear answer.
In Davis, Michelle McCottry called a 911 operator to report that she had just been assaulted by her former boyfriend, Davis, *1215who had fled the seene.6 Over Davis's Confrontation Clause objection, the trial court admitted a recording of the 911 call at Davis's trial, and Davis was convicted.7 The United States Supreme Court held that admission of the 911 tape had not violated Davis's right to confront the witnesses against him.8 The Court noted that McCot-try's statements were made to obtain police assistance in an ongoing emergency, not to recite to the police what had happened in the past.9
The Court contrasted the facts in Davis with the facts in Hommon. In Hammon, the police responded to a domestic disturbance.10 Amy Hammon told the police that her husband, Herschel Hammon, had assaulted her.11 Amy Hammon did not testify at trial, and the court admitted her statements to the police over Herschel Hammon's objection.12 The Supreme Court reversed that decision, finding that Amy Hammon's statements were testimonial because they were obtained not to address an ongoing emergency, but rather to establish what had happened in the past for the primary purpose of investigating a possible crime.13
The Davis and Hammon cases provide a clear dividing line when a crime victim makes a statement to the police. If the statement describes an ongoing emergency that requires immediate police assistance, the statement is generally not testimonial, If the statement does not describe an ongoing emergency, it generally is testimonial. But Davis and Hammon do not provide clear guidance as to when admission of an out-of-court statement that is not made to the police violates the Confrontation Clause.
In the present case, Amouak's statements were made to hospital staff, not to the police. If the statements had been made to the police, they would be testimonial, because at the time they were made there was no emer-geney requiring immediate police assistance. The question is whether the statements are not testimonial because they were made to medical personnel in the course of Amouak obtaining medical treatment.
Amouak's out-of-court statements identifying Clark as her assailant would not normally be admissible over a hearsay objection. In Johnson v. State,14 the Alaska Supreme Court held as a matter of law that a domestic violence victim's statements to her doctor identifying her assailant do not fall within the hearsay exception for statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment.15 The supreme court explained that "statements fixing fault and indicating the identity of an assailant are not relevant to medical diagnosis or treatment" and therefore "lack assurances of reliability and should be excluded."16
Furthermore, under Ohio v. Roberts,17 the governing law before Crawford, admission of Amouak's statements identifying Clark as her assailant would violate the Confrontation Clause. Under the Ohio v. Roberts test, statements of a hearsay declarant who is unavailable to testify at trial can be admitted only if the statements bear adequate "indicia of reliability."18 Reliability can be inferred if the evidence "falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception" or if there is a showing that the statements have "particularized *1216guarantees of trustworthiness.19 As discussed above, Amousak's statements identifying Clark would not normally be admissible under a hearsay exception. And there is certainly no reason to find her statements reliable. We know from Kimberly Yadon's testimony that, because Amouak had been drinking and driving without a valid license, Amouak and Yadon agreed before they went to the hospital to lie about the fact that Amouak had been driving that night. So there was testimony to support an inference that Amousask was not truthful about the events of that evening.
It is not clear to me where the United States Supreme Court is going with its Confrontation Clause analysis. The Court overruled Ohio v. Roberts, which had been the law since 1980, but has only begun to develop the Confrontation Clause analysis it first announced in Crawford. Therefore, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of trying to predict where the Court's analysis will go. I do not think Davis and Hammon provide a definitive answer in this case. I do know that Amouak's out-of-court statements would not be admissible under the hearsay rules or under formerly well-established case law as set out in Ohio v. Roberts.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Loretta Amouak was an important witness against Clark, Yet Clark had no opportunity to confront Amouak at his trial. Fundamental fairness suggests that Clark should not have been convicted based on Amouak's out-of-court statements unless the jury had the opportunity to see Amouak testify, to see Clark cross-examine her, and to weigh Amouak's credibility on that basis. I therefore respectfully dissent.

. 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004).

. 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006).

. 541 U.S. at 59, 124 S.Ct. at 1369.

. Davis, 547 U.S. at 821, 126 S.Ct. at 2273; Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. at 1374.

. Davis, 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Davis and Hammon were consolidated in Davis. However, I refer to them separately for purposes of comparison.

. Id. at 817-18, 126 S.Ct. at 2270-71.

. Id. at 819, 126 S.Ct. at 2271.

. Id. at 827-29, 126 S.Ct. at 2276-77.

. Id. at 827-28, 126 S.Ct. at 2276-77.

. - Id. at 819, 126 S.Ct. at 2272.

. Id. at 820-21, 126 S.Ct. at 2272-73.

. - Id. at 820, 126 S.Ct. at 2272.

. Id. at 829-30, 126 S.Ct. at 2278.

. 579 P.2d 20 (Alaska 1978).

. Id. at 22.

. Id.; see also Sluka v. State, 717 P.2d 394, 398-99 (Alaska App.1986) (child's statement to her doctor that her father had hit her with a shoe was inadmissible to the extent it identified the father as the assailant).

. 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980).

. - Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539.

. Id.