Court Opinion

ID: 9853793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:54:53.167745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:06.517037
License: Public Domain

CALABRIA, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I fully concur with the majority’s holding that defendant properly objected to Tabom’s testimony and that Stanley’s statements were non-testimonial under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177 (2004). I further concur with the majority’s holding with respect to defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury. However, I respectfully dissent from the assertion by the majority, relying on State v. Blackstock, 165 N.C. App. 50, 63, 598 S.E.2d 412, 420 (2004), that “we must still determine whether the non-testimonial statement had ‘adequate indicia of reliability’ ” under Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65 L. Ed. 2d 597 (1980), overruled on other grounds by Crawford, 541 U.S. 36, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177 (2004).
In Blackstock, the victim of a robbery and shooting made several statements to law enforcement officers and his wife and daughter following the crimes. Id., 165 N.C. App. at 52, 598 S.E.2d at 414. The trial court allowed the victim’s wife and daughter to testify to these statements at trial pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 8C-1, Rules 803(3) and 804(b)(5) over the defendant’s objections, despite the fact that the victim had died prior to trial. On appeal, the defendant argued that the victim’s statements to his wife and daughter “were not properly admissible under any hearsay exception and that their admission violated his right to confrontation.” Id., 165 N.C. App. at 59, 598 S.E.2d at 418. In analyzing the defendant’s right to confrontation, we first determined the victim’s statements were non-testimonial in nature under Crawford. Id., 165 N.C. App. at 62-63, 598 S.E.2d at 420. This Court subsequently responded to defendant’s specific assertion that the testimony was inadmissible under Roberts by analyzing whether the testimony lacked adequate indicia of reliability. It was because the constitutional question of admissibility under Roberts was squarely presented by the defendant to this Court that we undertook that analysis. Blackstock does not and should not be read to establish a per se rule that this Court is somehow compelled to determine the alternative, constitutional argument that evidence is inadmissible under Roberts merely because a defendant has argued solely *283that the evidence is inadmissible as testimonial under Crawford. After Crawford, it stands to reason that a defendant on appeal is fully entitled to argue that certain evidence is inadmissible under Crawford because it is testimonial and alternatively argue that the same evidence, if deemed non-testimonial, is barred under Roberts as failing to have adequate indicia of reliability.
In the instant case, defendant has not presented an alternative argument on appeal that the statements made by Stanley and testified to by Taborn were non-testimonial but barred under Roberts. Indeed, other than the separate constitutional attack under Crawford that Stanley’s statements were testimonial, defendant does not cite Roberts (or any authority) in his brief for the proposition that the subject testimony was constitutionally infirm. Accordingly, defendant has failed to raise the constitutionality of Tabom’s testimony under Roberts, and this argument has been abandoned under our Rules of Appellate Procedure. See N.C. R. App. P. 28(b)(6) (2005) (stating that “ [assignments of error ... in support of which no reason or argument is stated . . . will be taken as abandoned”). Moreover, defendant has failed to observe N.C. R. App. P. 28 (b)(6) by failing to cite authority for the proposition that Tabom’s testimony was constitutionally barred by Roberts or any of its progeny. This failing is significant as it appears the State was not put on notice that admissibility under Roberts was at issue in the instant case, accord Viar v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp., 359 N.C. 400, 402, 610 S.E.2d 360, 361 (2005); that is, the State limits its argument to respond to defendant’s contention that Stanley’s statements were testimonial under Crawford and does not alternatively present an argument that such statements were inadmissible under Roberts. This limitation on the State’s argument is reasonable in light of our long adherence to the appellate rules. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent as to the portion of the opinion requiring an analysis under Roberts merely because a defendant challenges the evidence on the grounds that it was testimonial under Crawford.