State Of Washington v. Tommie Bernard Lewis, 75662-1

Tommie Lewis was charged and convicted after recorded jail phone calls on Jan 27–28, 2016 allegedly showed he called Wendy Hynd, who was protected by a no-contact order.
Hynd did not testify at trial; the State introduced two statements made to Detective Daljit Gill in which a caller identified herself as "Wendy Hynd."
Trial court admitted those statements over hearsay and Confrontation Clause objections, ruling they were statements of identity and nontestimonial; convictions followed after a bench trial.
On appeal, the State conceded the statements of self-identification were hearsay and the court agreed admission was error under ER 802.
The appellate court assumed (without deciding) the statements were testimonial and thus implicated the Sixth Amendment, but held any Confrontation Clause error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given overwhelming untainted evidence identifying the voices and showing Lewis made the calls.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of Hynd's statements as non-hearsay	State: statements were statements of identity (not offered for truth)	Lewis: statements were hearsay because they were offered to prove Hynd's identity	Court: statements were hearsay; trial court erred in admitting them (State concedes)
Confrontation Clause violation by admitting Hynd's out-of-court ID statements	State: statements were nontestimonial present-tense acknowledgments	Lewis: statements were testimonial (made to police in investigation) and admission violated Sixth Amendment	Court: assumed testimonial for analysis but did not decide; treated as Confrontation Clause error
Harmlessness of Confrontation Clause error	State: any error did not affect verdict due to overwhelming untainted evidence (voice ID, recordings, CPS records, prior admissions)	Lewis: court relied on the infirm evidence and error was not harmless	Court: error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under the "overwhelming untainted evidence" test; conviction affirmed
Standard of review for confrontation and hearsay rulings	—	—	Hearsay rulings reviewed for abuse of discretion; Confrontation Clause reviewed de novo; harmlessness requires State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) (Confrontation Clause bars admission of testimonial out-of-court statements unless witness unavailable and defendant had prior opportunity to cross-examine)
Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006) (adopted primary-purpose test to distinguish testimonial from nontestimonial statements)
State v. Koslowski, 166 Wn.2d 409 (2009) (Washington discussion of primary-purpose test and testimonial statements in police investigations)
State v. Lui, 179 Wn.2d 457 (2014) (testimonial-statement analysis; statements likely to be used at trial are testimonial)
State v. Jasper, 174 Wn.2d 96 (2012) (harmless error standard applied to Confrontation Clause violations)
State v. Anderson, 171 Wn.2d 764 (2011) ("overwhelming untainted evidence" test for harmlessness of constitutional errors)