Vinson v. State
| Decision Date | 16 January 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. PD-1540-06.,No. PD-1541-06.,PD-1540-06.,PD-1541-06. |
| Citation | 252 S.W.3d 336 |
| Parties | Raymond Earl VINSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Dionne S. Press, Houston, for Appellant.
Alan Curry, Asst. District Atty., Houston, Jeffrey Van Horn, State's Atty., Austin, for State.
In this case we address the issue of whether statements made by an unavailable witness to a police officer may be properly admitted through the police officer's testimony at trial, in light of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. This determination is dependent on whether the statements are testimonial or nontestimonial, as defined by the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Washington.1
On December 6, 2004, Harris County Deputy Sheriff Stephen Chapman responded to a report by a 9-1-1 dispatch operator of a possible emergency at the apartment belonging to Lalania Hollimon and the appellant. The 9-1-1 operator told Chapman that a hang-up call had been made and that when the operator returned the interrupted call, a male answered and responded that there was no emergency. However, the operator heard a disturbance in the background and somebody yelling for police assistance. When Chapman arrived at the scene, Hollimon answered the door and appeared to be bleeding and in pain from recently inflicted injuries. Chapman asked her what had happened and Hollimon responded that her boyfriend had assaulted her. These statements constitute the first portion of Hollimon's statements. As the appellant does not contest the admissibility of these statements, we need not further address them in this opinion.2
Hollimon then identified her assailant as "Vinson," the appellant, and recounted the details of the assault, claiming that her assailant had knocked the phone out of her hand when she called 9-1-1. These statements constitute the second portion of Hollimon's statements. It is these statements that the appellant presently asserts were testimonial for Confrontation Clause purposes. During the questioning, the appellant came into the room and demanded that Hollimon "tell [the deputy] the truth" and "don't let them take me to jail." Chapman noted that the appellant was "very excited," shirtless, and sweating profusely. Chapman secured the appellant by placing him in the back of his patrol car, and then resumed questioning Hollimon.
The appellant was charged by information with assault of a household member and interference with an emergency phone call. At trial, Chapman recounted the statements made to him by Hollimon, since Hollimon was unavailable as a witness.3 The appellant objected to the portion of Chapman's testimony that related Hollimon's identification of the man in the room as "Vinson," as well as her detailed description of the assault and interference with an emergency call, on the basis that all of this testimony violated the Confrontation Clause and Crawford v. Washington.4 The trial court overruled the appellant's objection, but allowed the appellant a running objection to Chapman's testimony. The appellant was ultimately convicted of both offenses. Punishment was assessed for each offense at confinement in jail for 365 days and a fine of $500, with the jail time to run concurrently.
On appeal to the First Court of Appeals, the appellant asserted, inter alia, that the trial court had erred in allowing Hollimon's statements into evidence through Chapman's testimony because doing so violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The court of appeals found that, consistent with the holdings in Crawford and Davis, these statements were nontestimonial and therefore properly admitted.5 Consequently, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court.6 We granted the appellant's petition for discretionary review to address the question of whether the court of appeals properly applied the holdings of Crawford and Davis, since this issue is likely to recur in future cases.7
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him."8 In his sole ground for review, the appellant argues that the court of appeals erred in finding that the trial court properly overruled the appellant's Confrontation Clause objection to the admission of statements made by Hollimon to Chapman. In 2004, the Supreme Court held that the Confrontation Clause "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 a prior opportunity for cross examination."9 In the instant case, the appellant did not have a prior opportunity to cross-examine Hollimon. Therefore, the admissibility of these statements through Chapman's testimony hinges on the determination of whether the statements are testimonial or nontestimonial.
Recently, in Davis v. Washington, the Supreme Court clarified the distinction between testimonial and nontestimonial statements, holding that:
Without attempting to produce an exhaustive classification of all conceivable statements—or even all conceivable statements in response to police interrogation—as either testimonial or nontestimonial, it suffices to decide the present cases to hold as follows: 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.10
Thus, the issue in this case becomes whether, at the time that Hollimon made the statements to Chapman, circumstances were present that would objectively indicate the existence of an ongoing emergency. The Davis court noted a non-exhaustive list of factors to consider when determining whether statements were made during on ongoing emergency: 1) whether the situation was still in progress; 2) whether the questions sought to determine what is presently happening as opposed to what has happened in the past; 3) whether the primary purpose of the interrogation was to render aid rather than to memorialize a possible crime; 4) whether the questioning was conducted in a separate room, away from the alleged attacker; and 5) whether the events were deliberately recounted in a step-by-step fashion.11 We are concerned with the court of appeals's conclusion regarding the fourth factor.
Citing our decision in Wall v. State,12 the court of appeals stated that it would rely on the trial court's implicit determination of historical fact that the appellant was present during the entire time that Chapman questioned Hollimon. It said, "[g]iven the trial court's legal ruling and the fact that appellant's continued presence during Hollimon's remaining statements would have supported that ruling ... the trial court implicitly ... determined that the appellant was present."13 In arriving at this conclusion, the court of appeals reasoned that Chapman's recollection of events followed a particular chronological order that would support this interpretation, and that at several points during his testimony, Chapman seemed to imply that Hollimon's statements were made before the appellant had been secured. After reviewing the testimony of Chapman, we agree that some of what Hollimon told Chapman clearly occurred while the appellant was present, viz: the fact that "Vinson" assaulted her, and that the appellant is "Vinson." However, the record makes equally clear that the appellant was not present while Hollimon recounted the details of the assault to Chapman.
The appellant first claims that Hollimon's identification of him as "Vinson" was testimonial in nature and thus violated the Confrontation Clause when Chapman testified to this statement. We disagree. During his direct examination, Chapman stated:
[A] black male came from the living room area, and was saying And, he— this male came out and he was—was— he had no shirt on. And, he was sweating profusely. At that point, I asked her who he was? [sic] She described him as her boyfriend.... And, told me that his name was "Vinson."
Then, on re-direct examination, Chapman reiterated this statement:
[State]: But, initially, when—when he told—when [Hollimon] told you that [the appellant] was the one who had assaulted her, was [the appellant] there?
[Chapman]: Yes.
These two excerpts from Chapman's testimony unequivocally show that the appellant was present when Hollimon identified him as "Vincent," and asserted that he was the one who had assaulted her. We agree with the court of appeals that up to this point, before the appellant had been secured in the patrol car, the trial court could rationally have concluded that any interrogation was nontestimonial. The trial court could reasonably have found that Chapman was still assessing the situation and that, until the appellant was secured, an emergency situation was ongoing. We need not proceed any further with this analysis since this aspect of the trial court's ruling is plainly supported by the record. The court of appeals did not err to uphold the trial court's ruling in this respect.
The appellant next claims that Hollimon's detailed description of the assault was testimonial in nature and thus Chapman's conveyance of the details to the jury violates the Confrontation Clause. We must agree with the appellant. In our criminal justice...
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