Flores v. State
| Decision Date | 20 October 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 39413.,39413. |
| Citation | 120 P.3d 1170 |
| Parties | Martha FLORES, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Philip J. Kohn, Public Defender, and Robert L. Miller, Deputy Public Defender, Clark County, for Appellant.
Brian Sandoval, Attorney General, Carson City; David J. Roger, District Attorney, and James Tufteland, Chief Deputy District Attorney, Clark County, for Respondent.
Before the Court En Banc.
The trial jury below found appellant Martha Flores (Flores) guilty of first-degree murder by child abuse. The victim was her five-year-old stepdaughter, Zoraida Flores. Postmortem findings confirmed that the child had been physically abused, that her death was caused by blunt-force trauma to the head, and that Flores was present during the events surrounding the child's demise. Flores, however, denied any wrongdoing in connection with the child's death. The only direct proof in support of the State's theory of murder by child abuse came in the form of surrogate hearsay testimony, through which Flores's five-year-old daughter became her mother's accuser without testifying at trial. Thus, we examine the admissibility of such surrogate testimony under the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington.1
We conclude that, per Crawford, the admission of the daughter's hearsay statements violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that the violation was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and that Flores is therefore entitled to a new trial.
Jose and Martha Flores resided together in a Las Vegas apartment with Jose's five-year-old daughter Zoraida, Martha's daughters and mother, and an infant. Jose Flores worked to support the family, and Martha Flores stayed home to take care of the children. The record reflects that the family labored under the considerable stress of cramped living arrangements and economic pressures. On January 28, 2001, while Jose was away at work, emergency medical personnel responded to the apartment to provide assistance to Zoraida. Finding no pulse or breath intake, paramedics attempted to resuscitate the child but were unsuccessful. A postmortem examination of the body revealed numerous bruises and bite marks at different stages of healing. The coroner concluded that death was occasioned by blunt trauma to the head.
Flores provided Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) detectives with her account of the events in question, stating first that she found Zoraida that morning in her bedroom in distress and having trouble breathing. Upon taking the child in her arms, she found that Zoraida was limp and damp, as if she had "wet the bed." Flores claimed that she took Zoraida into the master bathroom and attempted to revive her with water from the shower and by waving rubbing alcohol under her nose. According to Flores, she then went to a neighbor for help because she did not understand what was wrong with the child and had no telephone in her apartment. Flores acknowledged that she had previously tried to cover a bruise around Zoraida's eye with makeup when they went out in public, in part to avoid questions from police.
Upon further investigation, officers found wet, urine-stained children's clothing and an open bottle of rubbing alcohol. They also observed standing water in the shower and on the bathroom floor. Crime scene investigators found no evidence of blood or physical damage to the shower or bathroom walls. This investigation supported Flores's version of the incident.
The only eyewitness to these events was Flores's daughter, Sylvia. Sylvia later told child abuse investigators and her foster mother, Yolanda Diaz, that Flores struck Zoraida during a struggle in a bathroom shower, that the blow caused the child to strike her head and lose consciousness, and that Zoraida never woke up.
The State charged Flores with one count of first-degree murder by child abuse. After conducting a hearing during which Sylvia and Diaz testified, the district court granted the State's pretrial motion to admit Sylvia's out-of-court statements under NRS 51.315(1).2 In this, the district court found that Sylvia was unavailable as a witness, observing that, based upon her emotional state, she did not wish to discuss the case and that "it's very obvious to the court, she'll not talk about it." The court also found strong assurances of the accuracy of the statements, given their consistency and corroboration by medical experts. Accordingly, Sylvia did not testify at trial. Rather, the State introduced Sylvia's hearsay statements through the testimony of LVMPD child abuse investigator Sandy Durgin, Child Protective Services investigator Carolyn Godman, and Yolanda Diaz.
Durgin testified at trial to Sylvia's statements that she heard Zoraida crying in the bathroom and her mother trying to get Zoraida to take a shower, and that "Zoraida was struck by her mother[,] and that her head hit the door and she fell to the ground and didn't get up again." Durgin stated that she utilized open-ended questions during the interview and tried not to influence Sylvia's statements. Godman testified to Sylvia's statements that Zoraida hit Flores on the leg during an argument; that Flores struck Zoraida causing the child to fall to the floor; and that, when Zoraida did not respond, Flores and Sylvia carried her to a bed in the apartment. Although Godman agreed that her interview was not optimal because of prompting to obtain verbal responses, she stressed that Sylvia provided specific information about the assault in response to several open-ended inquiries. Diaz testified to a later spontaneous statement by Sylvia that
Zoraida peed on her pants and my mom hit her, took her in the shower and hit her, and Zoraida slipped and hit her head. And my mom gave her some medicine and she never woke up.
In addition, a police witness described Flores's comparative lack of remorse at the loss of the child, and Jose Flores testified that neither Flores nor her family attended the funeral.
Dr. Elizabeth Richitt, a psychologist, testified for the defense. Although criticizing Godman's interview techniques, Dr. Richitt agreed that Sylvia consistently recounted the core facts giving rise to the prosecution.
The jury found Flores guilty of first-degree murder by child abuse. Thereafter, the district court entered judgment on the verdict and sentenced Flores to a term of life imprisonment with the possibility of parole in twenty years. As part of the judgment, the district court awarded Flores credit for 344 days spent in local custody prior to sentencing, ordered genetic marker testing, and ordered that Flores pay $3,000 in restitution. Flores filed her timely notice of appeal.
Flores seeks reversal and a new trial, contending that the district court improperly admitted Sylvia's hearsay statements, failed to replace the panel of prospective jurors after exposure to a prejudicial influence in the courtroom, erred in admitting gruesome autopsy photographs, evidence that Flores and her family failed to attend Zoraida's funeral, and testimony from police that compared the emotional reactions of Flores and her husband, and finally, that the district court committed judicial misconduct.
This appeal primarily concerns a claim that admission of evidence pursuant to a general, or residual, exception to the rule against hearsay violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
By way of history, the Confrontation Clause did not apply to the states prior to the 1965 United States Supreme Court case of Pointer v. Texas.3 Until then, confrontation rights in state courts were largely protected under the state formulations of the hearsay rule.4 In 1980, the Court handed down its decision in Ohio v. Roberts,5 which largely defined federal confrontation rights in terms that mirrored hearsay doctrine. Because the Roberts approach allowed admission of hearsay statements without the benefit of actual confrontation, i.e., cross-examination, the Court recently, in Crawford v. Washington,6 overturned Roberts to the extent that it related to "testimonial" statements.7 This change in doctrine came in response to a national debate over the original intent of the framers of the Sixth Amendment, and the differing considerations underlying hearsay doctrine and the Confrontation Clause. Certainly, Crawford will have considerable impact upon the prosecution of criminal cases in Nevada.
Admission of hearsay testimony and the Confrontation Clause
The district court in this case admitted the three hearsay statements under NRS 51.315(1), based upon Sylvia's "unavailability" and the court's findings that the statements were reliable. NRS 51.315(1) provides:
A statement is not excluded by the hearsay rule if:
(a) Its nature and the special circumstances under which it was made offer strong assurances of accuracy; and
(b) The declarant is unavailable as a witness.
Sylvia was the only eyewitness to the events in question. Because the State presented Sylvia's account through surrogates, thus avoiding any cross-examination, and because the Confrontation Clause applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment under Pointer, the district court's ruling implicated Flores's confrontation rights under Roberts, which was the controlling precedent at the time of the ruling.
In Roberts, the United States Supreme Court articulated two criteria under the Sixth Amendment for the admission of hearsay statements where the declarant is unavailable for cross-examination.8 First, the prosecution must demonstrate that the declarant is unavailable.9 Second, the district court may admit the hearsay statement if it either: (1) falls within a "firmly rooted" hearsay exception, or (2) the statement reflects "particularized guarantees of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Burnside v. State
...circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that they would be used prosecutorially. See Flores v. State, 121 Nev. 706, 716–20, 120 P.3d 1170, 1176–80 (2005) (discussing illustrations of testimonial hearsay). Moreover, as explained above, the statements were made in further......
-
Patterson v. State
...bad acts evidence. We note that Patterson never objected to the admission of these lyrics at trial. See Flores v. State, 121 Nev. 706, 722, 120 P.3d 1170, 1180–81 (2005) ( “ ‘[F]ailure to object will [generally] preclude appellate review of an issue’ unless plain error affecting the defenda......
-
State v. Maclin
...2004), cert. granted, (Colo., Dec. 20, 2004); State v. Snowden, 385 Md. 64, 867 A.2d 314, 325-26 (Md.2005); Flores v. State, 120 P.3d 1170, 1178-79 (Nev.2005); but see People v. Geno, 261 Mich.App. 624, 683 N.W.2d 687, 692 (2004) (statement implicating the defendant, which was given by a tw......
-
Summers v. State
...doubtful where the disciplinary reports contain testimonial statements. 40. See NRAP 10(a)(1); NRAP 11(a)(1). 41. Flores v. State, 121 Nev. 706, 721, 120 P.3d 1170, 1180 (2005) (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 ...