State v. Williams
| Decision Date | 23 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 20180649-CA,20180649-CA |
| Citation | 462 P.3d 832 |
| Parties | STATE of Utah, Appellee, v. Justin David WILLIAMS, Appellant. |
| Court | Utah Court of Appeals |
Wendy Brown and Kimberly A. Clark, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellant
Sean D. Reyes and Marian Decker, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellee
Opinion
¶1 A jury convicted Justin David Williams of aggravated burglary, criminal mischief, and assault after he broke down the door to his father’s motor home, entered, and attacked his father and brother. Williams appeals his conviction, arguing that the district court erred in admitting a nine-minute 911 call his father made after the assault. We conclude that the admission of the 911 call did not violate Williams’s Sixth Amendment right under the Confrontation Clause because the call was not testimonial in nature. We further conclude that the district court properly relied on the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule in admitting the statements made by the father at the outset of the call and that Williams waived any error when he abandoned his request to redact the remainder of the recording. Accordingly, we affirm.
¶2 On the night of January 10, 2018, Williams spotted his father’s motor home parked outside a business in Midvale, Utah. He broke down the door, entered, and assaulted his father and brother. After Williams fled, the father called 911 and reported the assault.
¶3 At the outset of the call, the father’s tone was distressed and his breathing labored:
¶4 At this point, a Unified Police dispatcher (the second dispatcher) joined the call and the first dispatcher explained the nature of the emergency. When the father spoke again, his voice had calmed. The second dispatcher asked the father a series of questions about the father’s age and injuries, details of the assault, Williams’s name and birthdate, Williams’s physical description, the direction Williams was going when he left the scene, and whether drugs or alcohol were involved. By the end of the nearly nine-minute call, officers had arrived at the scene.
¶5 At trial, the State presented limited evidence. The State relied primarily on the 911 call to establish the course of events and the elements of the crimes charged. Neither the father nor the brother was available to testify at trial. In addition to the 911 recording, the State presented three witnesses: the second dispatcher, a dispatch records custodian, and a responding police officer. The State also presented photographs taken at the scene that showed the motor home and the father’s injuries, along with the birth certificates of the father, brother, and Williams, which were used to establish their identities.
¶6 Before trial, the State filed a motion to admit the 911 phone call. Williams opposed the motion, arguing first, that it was inadmissible hearsay and second, that its admission would violate the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause if the father did not testify at trial. The State responded that the statements made during the phone call were nontestimonial, and that the call’s admission therefore did not violate the Confrontation Clause. Further, it argued that although the call was hearsay, it fell under the excited utterance exception found in rule 803(2) of the Utah Rules of Evidence.
¶7 Before the start of trial, the district court heard arguments on the 911 call’s admissibility. The court ruled that the entirety of the call was nontestimonial because the statements were elicited for the purpose of ending an emergency situation, and therefore its admission did not violate Williams’s Sixth Amendment confrontation right. The court appeared less certain, however, as to whether the entirety of the call qualified as an excited utterance. During the court’s discussion of the Confrontation Clause issue, it acknowledged that there was a point in the call where the father’s breathing slowed down and the type of information being relayed was not "of the nature and character of the initial information." When defense counsel argued that parts of the call should be redacted because of this, the court responded, "I think we can cross that bridge if we get there."
¶8 And the district court did eventually get there, ruling that the call was admissible as an excited utterance under rule 803(2) of the Utah Rules of Evidence. At that point, defense counsel stated, "Your Honor, the redaction portions." The court responded, asking, "[S]o you’re ... asking to stop the call, I guess, at the further questioning, in terms of the description of the son and where he went?" But defense counsel replied, "No, more [that] he’s ... dangerous when he’s on drugs." The court noted that the father never made this statement during the phone call, and moved on.
¶9 At trial, the State played the entire phone call for the jury. The jury convicted Williams of aggravated burglary, a first degree felony; criminal mischief, a class B misdemeanor; and assault, a class B misdemeanor. Williams appeals.
¶10 Williams argues that the admission of the 911 call constitutes reversible error for two reasons. First, he contends that its admission violated his right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. "Whether a defendant’s confrontation rights have been violated is a question of law, reviewed for correctness." State v. Garrido , 2013 UT App 245, ¶ 9, 314 P.3d 1014. Second, he contends that the 911 call was not admissible under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. "In reviewing the admissibility of hearsay, legal conclusions are reviewed for correctness, factual determinations are reviewed for clear error, and the ultimate question of admissibility is reviewed for abuse of discretion." State v. C.D.L. , 2011 UT App 55, ¶ 29, 250 P.3d 69.
¶11 For a hearsay statement to be admissible in a criminal trial, it must clear two hurdles. First, its admission must not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. Second, it must be admissible under an exception to the rule against hearsay. We address both points, beginning with the Confrontation Clause.
¶12 The Sixth Amendment states that "the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." U.S. Const. amend. VI. "When out-of-court testimonial statements ... are offered against a defendant at trial, the Confrontation Clause demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination." West Valley City v. Kent , 2016 UT App 8, ¶ 13, 366 P.3d 415 (quoting Crawford v. Washington , 541 U.S. 36, 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) (cleaned up)). On the other hand, hearsay statements that are nontestimonial do not implicate the Confrontation Clause. See State v. Griffin , 2016 UT 33, ¶ 35, 384 P.3d 186.
¶13 The United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Washington , 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006), described the difference between testimonial and nontestimonial statements in the context of questioning by police officers:
Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.
¶14 In Davis , a victim of domestic violence called 911 to report that her former boyfriend had assaulted her and then fled from her house. Id. at 817–18, 126 S.Ct. 2266. The conversation between the emergency operator and the victim included the following statements:
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