Ohio v. Clark

• Decision Date: 18 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–1352.,13–1352.
• Citation: 135 S.Ct. 2173,576 U.S. 237,192 L.Ed.2d 306
• Parties: OHIO, Petitioner v. Darius CLARK.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

576 U.S. 237

135 S.Ct. 2173

192 L.Ed.2d 306

OHIO, Petitioner

v.Darius CLARK.

No. 13–1352.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 2, 2015.

Decided June 18, 2015.

Matthew E. Meyer, for Petitioner.

Ilana Eisenstein, for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court.

Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, CA, for Respondent.

Erika Cunliffe, Jeffrey M. Gamso, Cuyahoga County Public Defender's Office, Cleveland, OH, Donald B. Ayer, Jones Day, Washington, DC, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Counsel of Record, Brian Wolfman, Stanford Law School, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Stanford, CA, for Respondent.

Michael DeWine, Attorney General of Ohio, Eric E. Murphy, State Solicitor, Samuel Peterson, Deputy Solicitor, Columbus, OH, Timothy J. McGinty, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, Katherine E. Mullin, Counsel of Record, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Cleveland, OH, for Petitioner.

Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.

Darius Clark sent his girlfriend hundreds of miles away to engage in prostitution and agreed to care for her two young children while she was out of town. A day later, teachers discovered red marks on her 3–year–old son, and the boy identified Clark as his abuser. The question in this case is whether the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause prohibited prosecutors from introducing those statements when the child was not available to be cross-examined. Because neither the child nor his teachers had the primary purpose of assisting in Clark's prosecution, the child's statements do not implicate the Confrontation Clause and therefore were admissible at trial.

I

Darius Clark, who went by the nickname "Dee," lived in Cleveland, Ohio, with his girlfriend, T.T., and her two children: L.P., a 3–year–old boy, and A.T., an 18–month–old girl.¹ Clark was also T.T.'s pimp, and he would regularly send her on trips to Washington, D.C., to work as a prostitute. In March 2010, T.T. went on one such trip, and she left the children in Clark's care.

The next day, Clark took L.P. to preschool. In the lunchroom, one of L.P.'s teachers, Ramona Whitley, observed that L.P.'s left eye appeared bloodshot. She asked him " ‘[w]hat happened,’ " and he initially said nothing. 137 Ohio St.3d 346, 347, 2013–Ohio–4731, 999 N.E.2d 592, 594. Eventually, however, he told the teacher that he " ‘fell.’ " Ibid . When they moved into the brighter lights of a classroom, Whitley noticed " ‘[r]ed marks, like whips of some sort,’ " on L.P.'s face. Ibid. She notified the lead teacher, Debra Jones, who asked L.P., " ‘Who did this? What happened to you?’ " Id., at 348, 999 N.E.2d, at 595. According to Jones, L.P. " ‘seemed kind of bewildered’ " and " ‘said something like, Dee, Dee.’ " Ibid . Jones asked L.P. whether Dee is "big or little," to which L.P. responded that "Dee is big." App. 60, 64. Jones then brought L.P. to her supervisor, who lifted the boy's shirt, revealing more injuries. Whitley called a child abuse hotline to alert authorities about the suspected abuse.

When Clark later arrived at the school, he denied responsibility for the injuries and quickly left with L.P. The next day, a social worker found the children at Clark's mother's house and took them to a hospital, where a physician discovered additional injuries suggesting child abuse. L.P. had a black eye, belt marks on his back and stomach, and bruises all over his body. A.T. had two black eyes, a swollen hand, and a large burn on her cheek, and two pigtails had been ripped out at the roots of her hair.

A grand jury indicted Clark on five counts of felonious assault (four related to A.T. and one related to L.P.), two counts of endangering children (one for each child), and two counts of domestic violence (one for each child). At trial, the State introduced L.P.'s statements to his teachers as evidence of Clark's guilt, but L.P. did not testify. Under Ohio law, children younger than 10 years old are incompetent to testify if they "appear incapable of receiving just impressions of the facts and transactions respecting which they are examined, or of relating them truly." Ohio Rule Evid. 601(A) (Lexis 2010). After conducting a hearing, the trial court concluded that L.P. was not competent to testify. But under Ohio Rule of Evidence 807, which allows the admission of reliable hearsay by child abuse victims, the court ruled that L.P.'s statements to his teachers bore sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness to be admitted as evidence.

Clark moved to exclude testimony about L.P.'s out-of-court statements under the Confrontation Clause. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that L.P.'s responses were not testimonial statements covered by the Sixth Amendment. The jury found Clark guilty on all counts except for one assault count related to A.T., and it sentenced him to 28 years' imprisonment. Clark appealed his conviction, and a state appellate court reversed on the ground that the introduction of L.P.'s out-of-court statements violated the Confrontation Clause.

In a 4–to–3 decision, the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed. It held that, under this Court's Confrontation Clause decisions, L.P.'s statements qualified as testimonial because the primary purpose of the teachers' questioning "was not to deal with an existing emergency but rather to gather evidence potentially relevant to a subsequent criminal prosecution." 137 Ohio St.3d, at 350, 999 N.E.2d, at 597. The court noted that Ohio has a "mandatory reporting" law that requires certain professionals, including preschool teachers, to report suspected child abuse to government authorities. See id., at 349–350, 999 N.E.2d, at 596–597. In the court's view, the teachers acted as agents of the State under the mandatory reporting law and "sought facts concerning past criminal activity to identify the person responsible, eliciting statements that ‘are functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing precisely what a witness does on direct examination.’ "

Id., at 355, 999 N.E.2d, at 600 (quoting Melendez–Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 310–311, 129 S.Ct. 2527, 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009) ; some internal quotation marks omitted).

We granted certiorari, 573 U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 43, 189 L.Ed.2d 896 (2014), and we now reverse.

II

A

The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, which is binding on the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." In Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), we interpreted the Clause to permit the admission of out-of-court statements by an unavailable witness, so long as the statements bore "adequate ‘indicia of reliability.’ " Such indicia are present, we held, if "the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception" or bears "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness." Ibid.

In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), we adopted a different approach. We explained that "witnesses," under the Confrontation Clause, are those "who bear testimony," and we defined "testimony" as "a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact." Id., at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). The Sixth Amendment, we concluded, prohibits the introduction of testimonial statements by a nontestifying witness, unless the witness is "unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination." Id., at 54, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Applying that definition to the facts in Crawford, we held that statements by a witness during police questioning at the station house were testimonial and thus could not be admitted. But our decision in Crawford did not offer an exhaustive definition of "testimonial" statements. Instead, Crawford stated that the label "applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations." Id., at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354.

Our more recent cases have labored to flesh out what it means for a statement to be "testimonial." In Davis v. Washington and Hammon v. Indiana, 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006), which we decided together, we dealt with statements given to law enforcement officers by the victims of domestic abuse. The victim in Davis made statements to a 911 emergency operator during and shortly after her boyfriend's violent attack. In Hammon, the victim, after being isolated from her abusive husband, made statements to police that were memorialized in a " ‘battery affidavit.’ " Id., at 820, 126 S.Ct. 2266.

We held that the statements in Hammon were testimonial, while the statements in Davis were not. Announcing what has come to be known as the "primary purpose" test, we explained: "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." Id., at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Because the cases involved statements to law enforcement officers, we reserved the question whether similar statements to individuals other than law enforcement officers would raise similar issues under the Confrontation Clause. See id., at 823, n. 2, 126 S.Ct. 2266.

In Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344, 131 S.Ct. 1143, 179 L.Ed.2d 93 (2011), we further expounded on the primary purpose test. The inquiry, we emphasized, must consider "all of the relevant circumstances." Id., at 369, 131 S.Ct. 1143. And we reiterated our view in Davis that, when "the primary purpose of an interrogation is to respond to an ‘ongoing emergency,’ its purpose is not to create a record...