Confrontation Clause

Back in February, we alerted you to the Supreme Court decision in Michigan v. Bryant regarding testimonial v. non-testimonial statements.  I wanted to re-post on this case and take a deeper look at what has changed as a result of the Supreme Court’s opinion.

The Bryant court came up with a new test to evaluate what types of statements made to law enforcement are testimonial.  Before Bryant, Crawford basically stated that statements made during interrogations qualified as testimonial.  But, Crawford was just the tip of the iceberg.  After Crawford, the Court in Davis v. Washington specifically addressed statements made to officers to enable them to respond to an ongoing emergency.  The Court held that those statements are non-testimonial.  The problem was that the Court in Crawford and Davis failed to give us a clear test to determine what types of statements would be non-testimonial.

Finally, the Court decided Bryant, giving us a test. Under the Bryant test, courts must consider three factors:

1) The circumstances of the encounter;

2) The questions and statements of the participants; and

3) The primary purpose of the interrogation as viewed by reasonable participants at the time.

The case was consistent with Crawford.  Analyzing the facts in Crawford, we can see that a 911 call reporting an ongoing assault would still be held non-custodial under the Bryant test.  The circumstances of the encounter was that there was an ongoing emergency taking place, the questions and statements of the participants were specifically in relation to the 911 call and the primary purpose of the 911 call was to report an emergency.  The Bryant court ultimately held that if the primary purpose of the statement is not for the purpose of creating a substitute for trial testimony, then the Confrontation Clause does not apply.

For all practical purposes, Crawford seemed to give a blanket exception for all 911 calls as being non-testimonial.  By giving us a test, the Supreme Court left each statement to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  Could a 911 call be considered testimonial?  If evaluated under the Bryant test, and the right circumstances exist, we think it could be.  This argument could have been made even after the Crawford decision came down, but it may be easier to point the court to the Bryant test when arguing that statements made were subject to the confrontation clause – even if there is an emergency situation taking place.

Michigan v. Bryant, 131 S. Ct. 1143 (2011)
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004)
Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006)

What happens when a witness cannot remember facts to which she previously testified before the grand jury?

Can the State simply read her grand jury testimony into evidence as past recollection recorded even though the Defendant was not present to cross-examine her during that hearing? Normally, I would say yes, but I’m not talking about a witness that cannot remember one fact or another.  I'm talking about a witness that cannot remember ANYTHING about which she testified before the grand jury.  To me, that changes the game a bit.

The CCA recently considered this issue in Woodall v. State. I say they “considered" it – actually the Court was careful not to provide a definite holding on the matter. Instead, it punted the case on procedural (waiver) grounds. Nonetheless, the CCA did provide some dicta that is a helpful insight into its thinking.

We believe that, under the facts of this case, memory loss did not render [the witness] “absent” for Confrontation Clause purposes…The Supreme Court has generally rejected the notion that a present and testifying witness is nevertheless absent for confrontation purposes if the witness suffer from memory loss.

Curiously, the CCA cites only pre-Crawford cases. For example, citing a 1970 Supreme Court case, the CCA quoted the concurring opinion of Justice Harlan, in which he opined that

a witness’s lack of memory should have no Sixth Amendment Consequence.

However, the legal landscape has drastically changed since the time of Justice Harlan’s opinion. I doubt Scalia would agree with such reasoning today. Then again, as a strict constructionist, maybe he would.  If the witness is available at trial, even if she cannot remember anything, is that enough to satisfy the 6th Amendment? I would argue NO, but perhaps I’m wrong. Either way, we will not find out with the Woodall case, because the CCA passed on the ultimate issue.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that dying declaration (classified in this case as "excited utterances") made to police officers and identifying the suspect, were admissible despite the fact that the witness did not later testify at trial.  The Court labeled the man's statements "non-testimonial" for purposes of the Confrontation Clause (and the Crawford case).  To read more about it, see CNN coverage HERE.

Read the Court's opinion in Michigan v. Bryant.

Justice Scalia did not mince words in his dissent:

Today's tale -- a story of five officers conducting successive examinations of a dying man with the primary purpose, not of obtaining and preserving his testimony regarding his killer, but of protecting him, them, and others from a murderer somewhere on the loose -- is so transparently false that professing to believe it demeans this institution.