Court Opinion

ID: 9798033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:35:14.588676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:00:36.851588
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
specially concurring.
While I agree that the victim’s out-of-court statements at issue in this case were not testimonial; that they fell within the firmly rooted, excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule; and that they were not admitted in violation of either the state or federal confrontation clause; I write separately to express in my own terms the state of the law in this jurisdiction concerning the admissibility of non-testimonial hearsay. Although I do not believe my view differs significantly from that expressed in today’s opinion by the court, I do believe that nuance of expression can lead to significantly different understandings (and therefore applications) of the law, especially in a context like this.
The immediate problem arises from the Supreme Court’s reinterpretation of the Confrontation Clause in Crawford v. Washing*887ton, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), as requiring an actual opportunity to confront (when it is applicable at all), rather than merely expressing a concern for reliability. The Crawford Court openly acknowledges that its holding “casts doubt” on the applicability of the Confrontation Clause to other than “testimonial” hearsay, but it also expressly reserves judgment on the survival of its holding to the contrary in White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992). Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. 1354. While lower courts are bound not only by the results of the Supreme Court’s opinions but also by those portions of its opinions necessary to those results, see Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 63, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), it remains the prerogative of the Supreme Court alone to overrule one of its precedents; and, as we note in today’s opinion, its precedents must therefore continue to be followed, even if they have been significantly undermined by subsequent changes in judicial doctrine, see State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 20, 118 S.Ct. 275, 139 L.Ed.2d 199 (1997); United States v. Hatter, 532 U.S. 557, 567, 121 S.Ct. 1782, 149 L.Ed.2d 820 (2001). Nevertheless, I am concerned by the suggestion that Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), “continues to govern federal constitutional scrutiny on non-testimonial evidence,” maj. op. at 881, not because of anything first appearing in Crawford, but rather because of the Supreme Court’s narrowing interpretations of Roberts, even before Crawford.
We, along with other jurisdictions, initially understood Roberts as construing the Confrontation Clause to limit the admissibility of hearsay statements to circumstances in which the statements bore sufficient indicia of reliability and the declarant was unavailable to testify. See People v. Dement, 661 P.2d 675 (Colo.1983). In at least two separate cases (and in increasingly explicit terms), the Supreme Court disabused us of that notion, making clear that it never intended Roberts to be understood so broadly and holding instead that Roberts “must be read consistently with the question it answered, the authority it cited, and its own facts.” White, 502 U.S. at 354, 112 S.Ct. 736 (quoting United States v. Inadi, 475 U.S. 387, 394, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 89 L.Ed.2d 390 (1986)). Roberts, of course, involved “testimonial,” rather than “non-testimonial,” hearsay, and more specifically, only the admissibility of prior recorded testimony. Roberts, 448 U.S. at 59, 100 S.Ct. 2531. So understood (the Court instructed us), Roberts stood for the proposition that unavailability “is a necessary part of the Confrontation Clause inquiry only when the challenged out-of-court statements were made in the course of a prior judicial proceeding.” White, 502 U.S at 354, 112 S.Ct. 736.
Long before its holding in Crawford, therefore, the Supreme Court had “clarified the scope of Roberts,” id. at 354, 112 S.Ct. 736, limiting its holding to prior recorded testimony. Without ever using the term, the Court in Crawford flatly overruled the holding of Roberts, deciding both that the Confrontation Clause requires an actual opportunity to cross-examine before permitting the admission of any statements to which it applies, and that it applies at least to testimonial statements, the only kind of statements within the narrowed scope of the Roberts holding. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. In Crawford, the Supreme Court therefore did not withhold judgment about the continued vitality of Roberts; it merely withheld judgment about the survival of White’s holding that the Confrontation Clause applies to other-than testimonial statements. Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. 1354.
Relying solely on pre-Roberts pronouncements, the Court in White, as it had done in Roberts, analyzed the “reliability requirement of the Confrontation Clause” in terms of “sufficient indicia of reliability,” White, 502 U.S. at 356 n. 8, 112 S.Ct. 736, ultimately holding that “where proffered hearsay has sufficient guarantees of reliability to come within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule, the Confrontation Clause is satisfied,” id. at 356, 112 S.Ct. 736. In so doing, White separately gave validity to the same kind of reliability analysis applied in Roberts, but only so far as to justify out-of-court statements pursuant to “firmly rooted” hearsay exceptions. Although it is the inescapable implication of Crawford that the Con*888frontation Clause cannot both govern non-testimonial hearsay and permit its admission without an opportunity for cross-examination, Crawford clearly intends that firmly rooted hearsay exceptions remain unaffected by the Confrontation Clause, either because it is inapplicable altogether or because it is automatically satisfied; and at least for the time being, it therefore leaves the holding of White undisturbed. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. 1354.
Unlike a number of courts already considering the matter, I would be cautious about interpreting too broadly the Supreme Court’s reference to Roberts in connection with “the Framers’ design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law.” Id. at 68, 100 S.Ct. 2531.1 Apart from the fact that non-testimonial hearsay has never been governed by Roberts, the oft-quoted passage, see maj. op. at 881, clearly refers only to “developments” in hearsay law, as distinguished from “firmly rooted” exceptions. In context, it stands merely for the proposition that unlike testimonial hearsay, the admissibility of which is constitutionally limited by availability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination, the development of exceptions for non-testimonial hearsay could remain flexible, as intended by the Framers, either by permitting courts to search for sufficient indicia of reliability, the approach typified by Roberts, or by finding such statements exempt from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. Having exhaustively disparaged, *889in the immediately preceding paragraphs, the “open-ended balancing tests” already applied by courts in the context of testimonial hearsay, the Court leaves little doubt, however, about the dangers it sees in the former approach, whether mandated by constitution or prescribed by state legislatures.
I count it no great sin to use the name “Roberts ” (as apparently even the Supreme Court does) as shorthand for an interpretation of the Confrontation Clause requiring indicia of reliability, as distinguished from guarantying a particular procedure to ensure reliability. I am concerned, however, that portions of today’s opinion may be read to suggest that the holding of Roberts once was, and continues to be, broad enough to govern the admissibility of non-testimonial hearsay. I would find such a proposition particularly insidious in this jurisdiction, where it risks appearing to extend vitality to our former misinterpretations of Roberts.
In Dement, we understood Roberts to announce a Sixth Amendment mandate that all hearsay be subject to the two-prong requirement of unavailability and sufficient indicia of reliability. Although that ease came to us from a ruling on the state constitution, we went out of our way to acknowledge the similarities in both the roots and prior constructions of the federal and state constitutional provisions, making clear that our interpretation of the state confrontation clause was guided by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the federal confrontation clause. After Inadi, “we continued to apply the two-step test in an effort to follow federal constitutional law,” making clear, however, that “we reaeh[ed] no decision on whether the two-part test articulated in Dement retained] its vitality in light of Supreme Court decisions.” Blecha v. People, 962 P.2d 931, 941 (Colo.1998); People v. Diefenderfer, 784 P.2d 741, 747 (Colo.1989)(finding the Roberts, two-prong test still applicable to nontraditional, not “firmly rooted” exceptions). In those cases we reemphasized that this test was adopted in Dement “[i]n an effort to maintain consistency between Colorado law and federal law,” Blecha, 962 P.2d at 941, rather than as an independent interpretation of the state constitutional provision in contradistinction to the federal confrontation clause.
While the court’s opinion in this case clearly reserves judgment about a separate state requirement of unavailability, I am concerned that it not be read to suggest the current existence of any independent construction of the state confrontation clause, mandating a showing of unavailability for non-testimonial hearsay unless or until it is overruled by this court. But see People v. Compan, 100 P.3d 533 (Colo.App.2004); People v. Green, 884 P.2d 339 (Colo.App.1994). As we have consistently made clear, and note again in our opinion today, we have always construed the state confrontation clause to be consistent with the Sixth Amendment. Dement adopted the two-prong test only because, and to the extent that, it considered that test mandated by the federal constitution. Dement, 661 P.2d at 679-80. After the Supreme Court’s holding in White, it is clear that the unavailability analysis of Roberts was intended, to apply only to “out-of-court statements [ ] made in the course of a prior judicial proceeding,” White, 502 U.S. at 354, 112 S.Ct. 736; and Crawford extends the Confrontation Clause concern for unavailability only as far as all other testimonial hearsay.
Should a trial court in this jurisdiction be faced with an objection, on state constitutional grounds, to an offer of the non-testimonial hearsay statements of an available declarant, it would be required to determine, as matter of first impression and without the constraint of any existing precedent, the scope of the unavailability requirement in the state constitution. It therefore continues to be necessary, as we make clear, to determine whether offered hearsay is non-testimonial and, at least in the context of state constitutional challenges, whether a declarant of non-testimonial hearsay is unavailable. Because the holding of White survives Crawford, at least for the time being, it is also essential to determine whether non-testimonial hearsay falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception.
When courts are faced, however, with the admissibility of non-testimonial hearsay that does not fall within any firmly rooted excep*890tion, a question not before us today, I fear they will find no safe harbor in even a Rob-eris-style search for indicia of reliability, and will be forced to assess whether the Confrontation Clause is applicable to this class of statements at all, and if so, the demands of confrontation in this context.
I am authorized to state that Justice KOURLIS joins in this special concurrence.

. Although many courts have stated that Roberts continues to apply to non-testimonial statements, as we note in today’s opinion, the picture may be somewhat more ambiguous that this observation suggests. Many of the courts adopting such a position do so in reliance on other courts, virtually without clarification or explanation. See, e.g., United States v. Brun, 416 F.3d 703, 706-07 (8th Cir.2005)(holding that nontesti-monial statements were properly admitted under Roberts after finding the First Circuit’s application of Roberts to nontestimonial statements persuasive (citing Horton v. Allen, 370 F.3d 75 (1st Cir.2004)); Horton, 370 F.3d 75, 83 (quoting "flexibility” passage from Crawford and summarily concluding: "unless [defendant’s] statements qualify as 'testimonial,' Crawford is inapplicable and Roberts continues to apply."); State v. Rivera, 268 Conn. 351, 844 A.2d 191, 201 (2004)(quoting “flexibility” passage, and summarily concluding: "In other words, nontesti-monial hearsay statements may still be admitted as evidence against an accused in a criminal' trial if it satisfies both prongs of the Roberts test...); State v. Martin, 695 N.W.2d 578, 584 (Minn.2005)(noting in dicta that the Supreme Court "announced a new test for admissibility of those statements that are testimonial, but left the Roberts test in place for nontestimonial statements. ...”).
Of those courts actually addressing the issue, some are equivocal, relying simply on the failure of Crawford to expressly overrule Roberts. See, e.g., United States v. Holmes, 406 F.3d 337, 348 n. 14 (5th Cir.2005)(noting that Crawford left open the possibility of exempting nontestimonial statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny, but concluding the Roberts test endured because the Court declined to overrule White); United States v. Hendricks, 395 F.3d 173, 179 n. 7 (3d Cir.2005)(noting that commentators interpreted Crawford to foretell the Court’s future abrogation • of the Roberts reliability analysis, thus excluding nontestimonial hearsay from Confrontation Clause scrutiny, but nevertheless applying Roberts because "such a development in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence is beyond the province of this court."); United States v. Saget, 377 F.3d 223, 227 (2d Cir.2004)(discussing Crawford's disparagement of Roberts, and concluding: "while the continued viability of Roberts with respect to nontestimonial statements is somewhat in doubt, we will assume for purposes of this opinion that its reliability analysis continues to apply to control nontestimonial hearsay ....”).
Finally, a number of courts have flatly held that Roberts does not control the admission of non-testimonial statements. See, e.g., State v. Carter, [326 Mont. 427,] 114 P.3d 1001, 1007 (Mont.2005)(affirming the admission of nontesti-monial statements based solely on applicable hearsay law after observing that Crawford afforded states "flexibility in forming their hearsay law, and [nontestimonial] evidence may be exempted from Confrontation Clause scrutiny."); State v. Wright, 701 N.W.2d 802, 809, 811 (Minn.2005)(holding that the admission of non-testimonial statements "did not violate [defendant's] Confrontation Clause rights under Crawford " because "when nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, states are permitted to exempt such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny as they see fit."); Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, [445 Mass. 1, 833 N.E.2d 549,] 2005 WL 2046000 (Mass.2005)(observing that after Crawford, "[t]he admissibility of nontestimonial out-of-court statements remains governed largely by State hearsay rules,” and holding that "[i]f a judge finds an out-of-court statement is not testimonial, then the Commonwealth's rules of evidence alone govern admissibility....”).
Interestingly, virtually none of the courts indicating a position one way or the other have actually excluded nontestimonial statements for failing to meet the test of Roberts. But see, Miller v. State, 98 P.3d 738 (Ok.[Crim.]Ct.App.2005).