Court Opinion

ID: 9853059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:41:51.066301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:40.377082
License: Public Domain

BENTON, J.,
dissenting.
This appeal challenges the admissibility of a certificate of breath analysis containing the attestation of a government employee who did not testify at trial. I would hold that the decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), bars its admission.
The certificate of blood analysis, which was admitted in evidence over a hearsay objection, is signed by a “breath test operator” under the following attestation:
I certify that the above is an accurate record of the test conducted; that the test was conducted with the type of equipment and in accordance with the methods approved by the Department of Criminal Justice Services, Division of *479Forensic Science; that the test was conducted in accordance with the Division’s specifications; that the equipment on which the breath test was conducted has been tested within the past six months and found to be accurate; that prior to administration of the test the accused was advised of his right to observe the process and see the blood alcohol reading on the equipment used to perform the breath test, and that I possess a valid license to conduct such test, given under my hand this 25th day of November, 2003.
The majority agrees that the operator’s attestation “statements ... constitute hearsay” and that Alan “Luginbyhl did not have the opportunity to cross-examine [the operator] to test the veracity of his statements ... [, raising] a valid Sixth Amendment concern.” Yet, the majority conducts its own historical analysis and concludes the statement is not testimonial. I disagree because Crawford answers that relevant question.
Examining the historical background of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, the Supreme Court in Crawford held that “history supports two inferences about the meaning of the Sixth Amendment.” 541 U.S. at 50, 124 S.Ct. at 1363.
First, the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused.... The Sixth Amendment must be interpreted with this focus in mind.
The historical record also supports a second proposition: that the Framers would not have allowed admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. The text of the Sixth Amendment does not suggest any open-ended exceptions from the confrontation requirement to be developed by the courts.
Id. at 50, 53-54, 124 S.Ct. at 1363, 1365. In view of this historical analysis, the Supreme Court overruled the reliability *480test set forth in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), because of “its demonstrated capacity to admit core testimonial statements that the Confrontation Clause plainly meant to exclude.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 63, 124 S.Ct. at 1371.
In plain terms, Crawford describes a “core class of ‘testimonial statements’” as including “affidavits,” any “similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially,” and “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.” Id. at 51-52,124 S.Ct. at 1364. Simply put, the certificate of blood analysis that was admitted in evidence in this case is testimonial under the narrowest of the Crawford definitions and, thus, falls squarely within the Crawford bar. As Alan Luginbyhl contends, the “certificate ... was a formalized, ex parte statement made by a government agent for the sole purpose of being used prosecutorially in court in lieu of his live testimony.”
It cannot be fairly disputed that the breath analysis and attestation of the operator were conducted solely to provide evidence in court to prove the facts necessary to convict Luginbyhl. Indeed, the attestation statement asserts the existence of seven facts or circumstances said to be true by the “breath test operator.” Despite those assertions of facts, the employee of the police department who signed the attestation as the operator was not subject to cross-examination as to any of those circumstances. As the Crawford Court noted, the “[ijnvolvement of government officers in the production of testimony with an eye toward trial presents unique potential for prosecutorial abuse—a fact borne out time and again throughout a history with which the Framers were keenly familiar.” 541 U.S. at 56 n. 7, 124 S.Ct. at 1367 n. 7.
The majority concludes too summarily, I believe, that the attestation “statements bear little or no resemblance to the evils at which the Confrontation Clause was directed.” It seems to me that the use of this type of statement was the *481paradigmatic violation the Supreme Court emphasized in Crawford. As the Court indicated in its historical analysis, an affidavit or letter from an alleged co-conspirator, Cobham, was read at a treason trial against Sir Walter Raleigh in “[t]he most notorious instance of civil-law examination” in a criminal trial. 541 U.S. at 44, 124 S.Ct. at 1360.
The Raleigh trial itself involved the very sorts of reliability determinations that Roberts authorizes. In the face of Raleigh’s repeated demands for confrontation, the prosecution responded with many of the arguments a court applying Roberts might invoke today: that Cobham’s statements were self-inculpatory, that they were not made in the heat of passion, and that they were not “extracted from [him] upon any hopes or promise of Pardon.” It is not plausible that the Framers’ only objection to the trial was that Raleigh’s judges did not properly weigh these factors before sentencing him to death. Rather, the problem was that the judges refused to allow Raleigh to confront Cobham in court, where he would cross-examine him and try to expose his accusation as a lie.
Id. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1370-71 (citations omitted). Noting that Raleigh was free to confront in court those who read Cob-ham’s letter, the Supreme Court observed, however, that this was an insufficient protection of a right to confrontation because “Heaving the regulation of out-of-court statements to the law of evidence would render the Confrontation Clause powerless to prevent even the most flagrant inquisitorial practices.” Id. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. In other words, to protect the right of confrontation, Cobham’s letter would be inadmissible under the Sixth Amendment because the Confrontation Clause “reflects a judgment, not only about the desirability of reliable evidence (a point on which there could be little dissent), but about how reliability can best be determined.” Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370.
Thus, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Crawford limits the definition of “testimonial” statements to “(1) ‘prior testimony at preliminary hearings, before a grand jury, or at a former trial,’ and (2) statements garnered from wit*482nesses during ‘police interrogations.’ ” The majority ignores other formulations of “testimonial” statements that Crawford expressly includes, such as “extrajudicial statements ... contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions, ... [and] 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, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. To say that testimonial evidence must meet the narrow definition the majority ascribes to it is to focus on the “form” of the evil, and not the substance, the lack of meaningful confrontation to counter the state’s evidence. The majority’s conclusion ignores the Supreme Court’s premise: “These formulations all share a common nucleus,”—they are statements reasonably expected to be used at trial. Id. at 52, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. As such, the Confrontation Clause gives a criminal defendant an absolute right of confrontation to meet this testimonial hearsay evidence.
Even a cursory review of the seven facts the operator certifies demonstrates they are not mere statements generated by a machine, as the majority suggests. For example, the operator attests “that prior to administration of the test the accused was advised of his right to observe the process and see the blood alcohol reading on the equipment used to perform the breath test.” The majority’s assertion that this evidence is “neutral” does not withstand analysis. It presupposes there was no way to cross-examine the blood test operator, when in fact, there were a number of effective means to cross-examine the operator concerning each of the attestations in the certificate. The certificate proclaimed that the equipment, the record it generated, the breath test, and the operator of the equipment all yielded a result that conformed to statutory requirements and that incriminated Luginbyhl. Without cross-examination, the certificate had the effect of reinforcing the Commonwealth’s theory of prosecution. The “crucible of cross-examination” could have exposed any weaknesses in the subjective state of the operator, his perception, the state of the equipment, or the test protocol.
*483The majority characterizes the operator’s statements as “neutral” and “non-accusatory,” suggesting a type of safeguard that is intended to render the statements more reliable or trustworthy as evidence. Nothing in Crawford declares that the hearsay statement must “accuse [the defendant] of any wrongdoing” to be testimonial or that “statements ... neutral in character” are nontestimonial. Indeed, nothing within the meaning of “testimonial” equates with “accusatory.” Furthermore, it is a dubious conclusion that the prosecutor’s evidence could ever be “neutral” in the context of the adversarial system in a criminal proceeding. “The Framers would be astounded to learn that ex parte testimony could be admitted against a criminal defendant because it was elicited by ‘neutral’ government officers.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 66, 124 S.Ct at 1373.
Giving a trial judge the discretion to determine whether a statement is “accusatory” or “neutral” smacks of the “open ended balancing” reliability analysis the Court rejected in Crawford: “The Roberts test allows a jury to hear evidence, untested by the adversary process, based on a mere judicial determination of reliability ... [and] replaces the constitutionally prescribed method of assessing reliability with a wholly foreign one.” Id. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. The Supreme Court warned that these were the very kinds of “vague” and “manipulable” standards the Framers “were loath to leave ... in judicial hands.” Id. at 67, 124 S.Ct. at 1373. Thus, the Court rejected the general concept of “replacing categorical constitutional guarantees with open-ended balancing tests” and held that those tests “do violence to [the Framers’] design.” Id. at 67-68, 124 S.Ct. at 1373. According to the Supreme Court, the Confrontation Clause “commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination.” Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. Thus, the Supreme Court explicitly and “once again rejected] the view that the Confrontation Clause applies of its own force only to in-court testimony, and that its application to out-of-court statements introduced at trial depends upon ‘the law of Evidence for the *484time being.’ ” Id. at 50-51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364. These rulings perforce reject injecting a manipulable evidentiary standard to avoid the constitutional command of Crawford, which the majority opinion does under the guise of characterizing the evidence as “neutral” or “not accusatory.”
The relevant factor under Crawford is that this evidence was generated to discover and report evidence against Luginbyhl, the accused. It then was used at trial for that purpose without the opportunity of cross-examination. Furthermore, whether the evidence is accusatory or neutral, it does “bear testimony,” 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. at 1364; it was prepared for use at trial by a government agent; it was a substitute for an actual witness; and it was admitted in evidence without the opportunity of cross-examination. Simply put, “[ajdmitting statements deemed reliable by a judge is fundamentally at odds with the right of confrontation.” Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370.
The majority opinion cites several appellate courts that have ruled affidavits to be nontestimonial. Other appellate courts, however, addressing this precise issue, have ruled that similar affidavits are testimonial and barred by Crawford. See, e.g., Shiver v. State, 900 So.2d 615, 618 (Fla.App.2005) (holding that a breath test affidavit “contained statements one would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially, ... was made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness to reasonably believe the statements would be available for trial,” and was testimonial); City of Las Vegas v. Walsh, 120 Nev. 392, 91 P.3d 591, 595 (2004) (holding that an affidavit “offered to prove certain facts concerning use of certain devices ... related to determining presence of alcohol” is one prepared for use at trial and is testimonial); People v. Rogers, 8 A.D.3d 888, 780 N.Y.S.2d 393 (N.Y.App.Div.2004) (holding that a blood test report “generated by the desire to discover evidence against defendant” was testimonial). In any event, to decide this case, we need not go beyond the text of Crawford.. Plainly understood, the language in Crawford leads to the conclusion that this certificate of analysis is testimonial just as “affidavits ... the defendant was unable to cross-examine.” 541 U.S. at 51, *485124 S.Ct. at 1364. As the Supreme Court noted, “[wjhere testimonial statements are involved, we do not ... leave the Sixth Amendment’s protection to the vagaries of the rules of evidence.” Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. at 1370. In other words, “[dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes.” Id. at 62, 124 S.Ct. at 1371.
For these reasons, I would hold that the admission of the document violated Luginbyhl’s rights as protected by the Confrontation Clause.