The primary issue we address in this case is whether an autopsy report prepared pursuant to chapter 406, Florida Statutes (2001), is testimonial, hearsay under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States'Constitution. Following a jury trial, Appellant, Luis Rosario, was convicted of aggravated child abuse and first-degree murder of A.S., a four-year-old boy. He argues that his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him was violated at trial for two reasons. First, the trial court allowed the admission of the autopsy report of A.S. into evidence without requiring the testimony of the medical examiner who prepared the autopsy report. Second,
I. Statement of the Case and Facts
In 2001, Appellant was living with A.S.’s mother and her two children. On April 15, 2001, the four returned home from a pool party. As A-S. was exiting the vehicle, he became tangled in his seatbelt and fell, striking his head on the concrete below. A.S. let out an excruciating scream and began to cry. Appellant then took A.S. inside, gave him a shower, and put him to bed. According to A.S.’s mother, A.S. continued to cry and she could hear Appellant telling him to “shut up” before she went to bed.
In the middle of the night, the mother was awakened by the sounds of Appellant making noises in the house as well as in the garage.
In the early morning hours of April 16, 2001, A.S. was pronounced dead at the hospital. Doctor Shashi Gore, the then-Chief Medical Examiner for the district, conducted the autopsy of A.S.’s body. As described in the autopsy report, there are five possible manners of death: (1) accident; (2) suicide; (3) homicide; (4) natural; and (5) undetermined. In his original autopsy report dated April 16, 2001, Dr. Gore could not conclude the manner in which A.S. had died; he listed the cause of death as “undetermined.”
' On November 15, 2001,.Dr. Gore filed an addendum to his autopsy report, mentioning contusions in A.S.’s mouth and an abrasion on the back of his ear, but he did not change his original conclusion as to the cause of death. However, in mid-February of 2002, Dr. Gore met. with members of law enforcement and with doctors from Child Protective Services (“CPS”). The next day, Dr. Gore changed his conclusion as to the cause of death to “homicide,” finding that the death was caused by asphyxiation based on “[n]ew evidence.” However, Dr. Gore did not identify the “new evidence” in the autopsy report. •
Appellant continued to reside with A.S.’s mother for approximately two to four months after the child’s death. When first interviewed by law enforcement after the death of her son, the mother never told the police that Appellant had threatened her that night or that he prevented her from calling the police. It was not until seven or eight years later, in 2008 or 2009, that she first advised law enforcement of Appellant’s actions, explaining that she did
At some point after the autopsy of A.S., Dr. Gore was removed as the Chief Medical Examiner for the district and was replaced by Dr. Jan C. Garavaglia. The State listed Dr. Garavaglia as its medical expert for trial and did not include Dr. Gore as one of its witnesses. During her pretrial deposition, Dr. Garavaglia testified that she did not participate in any way during the autopsy of A.S. Based upon this testimony and Appellant’s belief that the State did not intend to call Dr. Gore as a trial witness, Appellant filed a motion in limine to preclude the State from introducing the testimony of Dr. Garavaglia. Appellant raised no issue with the qualifications of Dr. Garavaglia. However, citing to Crawford v. Washington,
A hearing on Appellant’s motion in li-mine was held shortly before trial, which took place in 2013, almost 12 years after AS.’s death. At this hearing, the State advised the court that it did not intend to introduce the autopsy report into evidence at trial. Based upon this representation, the trial court orally announced that it was denying the motion in limine pursuant to Florida case law that permits a surrogate medical examiner to provide his or her opinion as to a victim’s cause of death, despite having not performed the autopsy.
At trial, the State’s theory of the case was that Appellant suffocated A.S. to get him to stop crying. Dr. Gore did not testify at trial. However, notwithstanding the State’s prior representation at the motion in limine hearing, Dr. Gore’s autopsy report was offered and allowed into evidence over Appellant’s Confrontation Clause objection.
Appellant’s defense was that there was no reliable evidence that A.S.’s death was a homicide. Appellant did not testify at trial. His only witness was Dr. Stephen Nelson, the Chief Medical Examiner for another district in Florida. Dr. Nelson was the prior chairman of the State of Florida’s Medical Examiners Commission and was involved in Dr. Gore’s removal from office. Based upon his review of Dr. Gore’s original and amended autopsy report, he concluded that AS.’s cause of death was undetermined, as Dr. Gore had initially reported. Dr. Nelson noted other potential causes of death, including signs of an infectious process present in A.S.’s lungs and that A.S.’s spleen was three to four times larger than the normal size.
Both Dr. Garavaglia and Dr. Nelson testified that they considered Dr. Gore to be generally unreliable. According to Dr. Ga-ravaglia, “He’s had trouble as a medical examiner.”
At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Appellant guilty as charged, and the trial court sentenced him to serve life in prison for the first-degree murder charge and thirty years in prison for the aggravated child abuse charge with the sentences to run concurrently. Appellant timely filed a motion for new trial, asserting, among other things, that the trial court erred in denying his pretrial motion in limine and in admitting Dr. Gore’s autopsy report at trial, as it violated the Confrontation Clause. The trial court denied the motion for new trial and this appeal followed.
II. The Confrontation Clause
A. United States Supreme Court Precedent
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants a criminal defendant the right to confront witnesses against him at trial. Amend. VI, U.S. Const. (“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.... ”). The Sixth Amendment is applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas,
The seminal case pertaining to a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him is Crawford v. Washington, ■
In Crawford, the Court receded from its prior decision in Ohio v. Roberts,
“ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent — that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, pri- or testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecuto-rially”; “extrajudicial statements ... contained in- formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions”; “statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.”
Id. at 51-52,
The Court has not specifically addressed whether an autopsy report is testimonial under the Confrontation Clause. However, since Crawford, the Court has addressed whether similar forensic reports qualified as testimonial hearsay on three separate occdsions. In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts,
Two years later, the Court decided Bullcoming v. New Mexico, — U.S.-,
The Court held that the “surrogate testimony” violated the Confrontation Clause because it revealed testimonial statements within Caylor’s report. Id. at 2710. Specifically, it found that Caylor was more than a “mere scrivener” as he’made representations in his report that related to past events and human actions that were' not revealed in raw, machine-produced data, thereby making his representations “meet for cross-examination.” Id. at 2714-15. In addition, the Court stated that the Confrontation Clause “does not tolerate dispensing with confrontation simply because the court believes-that questioning one witness about another’s testimonial statements provides a fair enough opportunity for cross-examination.” Id. at 2716. Accordingly, the Court held that the Confrontation Clause precludes the prosecution from introducing “a forensic laboratory report containing a testimonial certification — made for the purpose of proving a particular fact — through the in-court testimony of & scientist who did not sign the certification' or perform or observe the test reported in the certification.” Id. at 2710, 2713.
Most recently, in Williams v. Illinois, — U.S. —-,
The State called Lambatos at trial, and the petitionér objected to her testimony regarding the computer match between the male DNA profile found in the semen and the male DNA profile .from petitioner’s blood. Id. at 2229-30. “The Cellmark report itself was neither admitted into evidence nor shown to the factfinder.” Id. at 2230. The specialist “did not quote or read from the report; nor did she identify it as the source' of any of the opinions she expressed.” Id: The trial court, sitting as the trier of fáct, found no Confrontation Clause violation because the petitioner was afforded an “opportunity to cross-examine the expert who had testified that there was a match between the DNA profiles” and because the Illinois rules of evidence allow an expert “to disclose the facts on which the expert’s opinion is based even if the expert is not competent to testify to those underlying facts.” Id. at 2231. The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed, finding that the Cellmark report was not offered into evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Id. at 2231-32.
In a splintered opinion, four justices— Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Alito, Kennedy, and Breyer (the “plurality”)— concurred with the reasoning of the Supreme Court of Illinois. The plurality began its analysis by reiterating that “[i]t has long been accepted that an expert witness may voice an opinion based on facts concerning the events at issue in a particular case even if the expert lacks first-hand knowledge of those facts.” Id. at 2233. The plurality then stated the critical por
The defect in this argument is that under Illinois law (like federal law) it is clear that- the putatively offending phrase in Lambatos’ testimony was not admissible for the purpose of proving the truth of the matter asserted — i.e., that the matching DNA profile was “found in semen from the vaginal swabs.” Rather, that fact was a mere premise of the prosecutor’s question, and Lambatos simply assumed that premise to be true when she gave her answer indicating that there was a match between the. two DNA profiles. There is no-reason to think that the trier of fact took Lambatos’ answer as substantive evidence to establish where the DNA profiles came from.
Id. Stated differently, the plurality found that the statement was not hearsay. See id.
Of critical importance in Williams, according to the plurality, was the fact that the trier of fact was the trial judge. See id. at 2236-37. The plurality did agree, however, that “[t]he dissent’s, argument would have force if petitioner had elected to have a jury trial,” rather than a bench trial. Id. at 2236. The plurality also concluded as a separate, independent basis that even if the Cellmark report had been introduced for its truth, there would be no Confrontation Clause violation because “the primary purpose of the Cellmark report, viewed objectively, was not to accuse petitioner or to create evidence for use at trial.” Id. at 2243. In other words, the plurality found that not only was the statement admitted at trial not hearsay, it was also not testimonial. See id.
Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment but explicitly disagreed with the plurality’s “flawed analysis.” Id. at 2255 (Thomas, J., concurring). According to Justice Thomas, “There is no meaningful distinction between disclosing an out-of-court statement so that the factfinder may evaluate the expert’s opinion and disclosing that statement for its truth. ‘To use the inadmissible information in evaluating the expert’s testimony, the jury must make a preliminary judgment about whether this information is true.’ ” Id. at 2257 (quoting D. Kaye, D. Bernstein, & J. Mnookin, The New Wigmore: A Treatise on Evidence: Expert Evidence § 4.10.1, at 196 (2d ed. 2011)). In addition, Justice Thomas stated that the plurality’s “primary purpose” test “lacks any grounding in constitutional text, in history, or in logic.” Id. at 2262. However, Justice. Thomas ultimately found no Confrontation Clause violation “solely because Cellmark’s statements lacked the requisite ‘formality and solemnity* to be considered ‘testimonial’ for purposes of the Confrontation Clause.” Id. at 2255. “The Cellmark report lacks the solemnity of an affidavit or deposition, for it is neither a sworn nor a certified declaration of fact,” he stated. Id. at 2260. As a result, Justice Thomas concluded that the report was “not a statement by a Svitneste]’ within the meaning of the Confrontation Clause.” Id. (alteration in original).
Justices Kagan, Scalia, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor dissented, making (in addition to Justice -Thomas) “[fjive Justices [that]
The dissent also rejected the plurality’s “second, independent” rationale utilizing its “primary purpose/accusation” test. Id. at 2272-73. In this regard, the dissent noted:
We have previously asked whether a statement was made for the primary purpose of establishing “past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution” — in other words, for the purpose of providing evidence. Davis,547 U.S., at 822 ,126 S.Ct. 2266 ; see also Bullcoming, 564 U.S., at -,131 S.Ct., at 2716-2717 ; Bryant, 562 U.S., at [361— 62], [374-76],131 S.Ct., at 1157, 1165 ; Melendez-Diaz,557 U.S., at 310-311 ,129 S.Ct. 2527 ; Crawford,541 U.S., at 51-52 ,124 S.Ct. 1354 . None of our eases has ever suggested that, in addition, the statement must be meant to accuse a previously identified individual; indeed, in Melendez-Diaz, we rejected a related argument that laboratory “analysts are not subject to confrontation because they are not ‘accusatory” witnesses.”557 U.S., at 313 ,129 S.Ct. 2527 .
Nor does the plurality give any good reason for adopting an “accusation” test. The plurality apparently agrees with Justice BREYER that prior to a ■suspect’s identification, it will be “unlikely that a particular researcher has a defendant-related motive to behave dishonestly.” Ante, at 2250 (BREYER, J., concurring); see ante, at 2243 — 2244 (plurality opinion). But surely the typical problem with laboratory analyses— and the typical focus of cross-examination — has to do with careless or incompetent work, rather than with personal vendettas. And as to that predominant concern, it makes not a whit of difference whether, at the time of the laboratory test, the police already have a suspect.
Id. at 2273-74.
Lastly, the dissent rejected Justice Thomas’s “indicia of solemnity” definition of “testimonial,” noting that the Court previously rejected that requirement in Bull-coming. Id. at 2275-76. The Court also stated that Justice Thomas’s approach, if accepted, “would turn the Confrontation Clause into a constitutional geegaw — nice for show, but of little value” because “[t]he prosecution could avoid its demands by using the right kind of forms with the right kind of language.” Id. at 2276. The dissent closed by noting that the outcome in Williams would lead to uncertainty due to “four Justices’ desire to limit Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming in whatever way possible.” Id. at 2277. “The better course in this case would have been simply to follow Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming,” the dissent stated. Id.
B. Federal Circuit Court and State Appellate Court Precedent
Though the United States Supreme Court has not specifically addressed
In United States v. De La Cruz,
In contrast, the Eleventh and District of Columbia Circuit Courts of Appeals have concluded that an autopsy report is testimonial. In United States v. Ignasiak,
State courts are also split on this issue.
First, the court noted that “Florida cases explicitly hold that it is proper to permit a substitute medical expert to testify as to cause of death despite the fact that the expert did not perform the autopsy, when the substitute medical expert relies on the autopsy report.” Id. at 103. In this regard, according to the court, “the determination of whether the witness was qualified to express an expert opinion' was a matter within the discretion of the trial judge, and finding no clear showing of error, this ruling will not be reversed.” Id. (citing Brennan v. State,
III. The Autopsy Report
A. Testimonial Hearsay
Because the Confrontation Clause only applies to testimonial hearsay, Davis v. Washington,
We next determine whether Dr. Gore’s autopsy report was testimonial. Since there is no precise definition of “testimonial” within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment, we first begin our analysis by attempting to ascertain the intent of the framers of the Constitution. See Lawnwood Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Seeger,
“On every question of construction, [we should] carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted; recollect the spirit manifested in the debates; and instead of trying [to find] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n,
On more than one occasion, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that autopsy reports have historically been treated in early America as testimonial, notwithstanding their potential status as nontestimonial in England during the same time. See Melendez-Diaz,
To further assist our analysis of whether Dr. Gore’s autopsy report is testimonial, we also consider the'circumstances under which the report was prepared, the primary purpose of the report, and the solemnity of the report. See Williams,
A By law we have the duty to investigate deaths that fall under the .law, basically anybody that dies suddenly and unexpectedly, anybody for any trauma; the law states which cases have on the [sic] reported to us. And we do our own independent investigation. I gather information by the. police, gather all the information available that, we need to determine cause and manner of death and then by law to write a report and sign a death certificate.
Q So the .medical examiner’s office looks at cases that might be homicide, might not be homicide, might be suicide, might be accidental death?
A Right, any death that is any type of trauma, any kind of suspicious death, anybody that just dies suddenly and unexpectedly and not expected to die. Anything that is definitely not natural has to be reported to the medical examiner’s office.
In'Florida, medical examiners are governed by chapter 406, Florida Statutes. In Ignasiak, the court explained the statutory duties of medical examiners in Florida and their statutory relationship with law enforcement as follows:
Under Florida law, the Medical Examiners Commission was created and exists within the Department of Law Enforcement. Fla. Stat. § 406.02. Further, the Medical Examiners Commission itself must include one member who is a state attorney, one member who is a public defender, one member who is sheriff, and, one member who is the attorney general or his designee, in addition to five other non-criminal justice members. Id. The medical examiner for each district “shall determine the cause of death” in a variety of circumstances and “shah, for that purpose, make or have performed such examinations, investigations, and autopsies as he or she shalldeem necessary or as shall be requested -by the state attorney.” Fla. Stat. § 406.11(1). Further, any person who becomes aware of a person dying under circumstances described in section § 406.11 has a duty to report the death to the medical examiner. Id. at § 406.12. Failure to do so is a first degree misdemeanor. Id.
“Upon receipt of such notification ... the district medical examiner ... shall examine or otherwise take charge of the dead body and shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency.” Fla. Stat. § 406.13. Then, after the cause of death is determined, the medical examiner is required to “report or make available to the state attorney, in writing, her ... determination as to the cause of death.”
Id. The medical examiner may retain “[a]ny evidence or specimen coming into the possession of said medical examiner in connection with any investigation or autopsy,” or deliver it to law enforcement. Id. Likewise, law enforcement has a duty to make “[a]ny evidence material to the ... cause of death” in the possession of law enforcement available to the medical examiner. Fla. Stat. at 406.14.
Ignasiak,
Due to this statutory relationship with law enforcement and the “suspicious” circumstances that give rise to, and in fact require, the creation of an autopsy report in Florida, we conclude that an autopsy report prepared pursuant to chapter 406 is presumptively testimonial in nature. Not unlike a witness’s written recitation of facts to a police officer following a suspected crime, such autopsy reports are “made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.” Crawford,
There is no reason to suspect that a pathologist with considerable experience and knowledge of statutory' duties to report suspicious deaths to law enforcement officers would not anticipate criminal litigation to result from his determination that the trauma-related death of a child was the result of homicide. The statements in the report were made to establish the facts related to [the decedent’s] cause of death; ruling the death a homicide reflects directly on the issue of a defendant’s guilt or innocence. No question existed that the report would support and be used in a criminal prose-eution.
Jammillo,
To the extent that they define when a statement is testimonial, we also find that Dr. Gore’s autopsy report satisfies the primary purpose and solemnity tests applied by the Court in Melendez-Diaz, Bullcom-
Here, unlike the report in Williams, the circumstances surrounding the creation of the autopsy report strongly suggest that the primary purpose of the report, viewed objectively, was to create evidence for use at trial. See Williams, 132 S.Ct. at 2243 (plurality opinion). Not only was the report prepared pursuant to chapter 406, Florida Statutes, evidence at trial also showed that almost immediately after being contacted by law enforcement and a pediatrician from CPS, Dr. Gore changed his conclusion in the autopsy report concerning A.S.’s cause of death to “homicide,” just as the Court in Melendez-Diaz predicted may happen.
We further conclude that the fact that the autopsy report was not sworn to or certified- does not make it nontestimonial. This argument was expressly rejected in Bullcoming.
In sum, we conclude that an autopsy report prepared pursuant to chapter 406 is testimonial hearsay under the Confrontation Clause. With respect to the broad statement in Banmah that “autopsy reports are non-testimonial because they are prepared pursuant to a statutory duty, and not solely for use in prosecution,” we respectfully disagree.
B. Harmless Error
Having concluded that Appellant’s right to confront witnesses was violated by the admission of Dr. Gore’s autopsy report, we next address whether this error was harmless. “Violations of the Confrontation Clause, where preserved, are subject to harmless error analysis.” Corona v. State,
We find that the admission of Dr. Gore’s autopsy report was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The ultimate goal of the Confrontation Clause is to ensure reliability of evidence. See Melendez-Diaz,
Moreover, Dr. Garavaglia concluded that A.S.’s death was a homicide based on personally observed facts. At trial, Dr. Gara-vaglia concluded that A.S.’s death was a homicide based on five “facts”: (1) A.S. had injuries on his body, such as an abrasion on his face, which indicated “he was recently beaten”; (2) A.S. had petechiae (broken blood vessels) and red marks/contusions on the back of his neck, “indicating there was pressure put on the back of his neck”; (B) A.S. had pulmonary edema (swelling of the brain), which indicated that A.S. had a seizure, “probably [due to a] lack of oxygen”; (4) A.S. had “two small little marks on the inside of his lip, both upper and lower, which are consistent with those lips being pressed up against his teeth”; and (5) A.S. had a stretch abrasion on the back of his ear and two little marks on his earlobe “that could be fingernail marks.” Based on these facts, Dr. Gara-vaglia concluded that A.S. was held down by his neck and suffocated. Dr. Garavag-lia testified that she confirmed facts one, two, four, and five by looking at nontesti-monial photographs of A.S.’s body that were also admitted into evidence.
In combination with AS.’s mother’s compelling testimony regarding Appellant’s suspicious behavior around the time of AS.’s death, Dr. Garavaglia’s independent conclusion was more than sufficient to support Appellant’s convictions.
IV. The Surrogate Medical Examiner’s Testimony
As a second, independent basis for reversal, Appellant argues that it was also a
Florida law generally permits an expert to offer an opinion based on inadmissible evidence. See § 90.704, Fla. Stat. (2013). Section 90.704, Florida Statutes, which governs the basis of opinion testimony by experts, provides as follows:
The facts or data upon, which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by, or made known to, the expert at or before the trial. If the facts or data are of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the subject to support the opinion expressed, the facts or, data need not be admissible in evidence. Facts or data that are otherwise inadmissible may not be disclosed to the jury by the- proponent of the opinion or inference unless the court determines that their probative value in assisting the jury to evaluate the expert’s opinion substantially outweighs their prejudicial effect.
Id. The Florida Supreme Court has specifically concluded that section 90.704 permits a medical expert to testify as to their opinion of the cause of death, despite the fact that the expert did not perform the autopsy.' See Schoenwetter v. State,
In Schoenwetter, the defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, among other charges. See
However, because the issue was not preserved, the court expressly declined to address whether the defendant’s right of confrontation was violated. The court stated:
Schoenwetter’s reliance on Crawford in arguing that the medical examiner’s reports, notes, and statements were testimonial hearsay is misplaced. The record does not reflect any specific objection by counsel based on [the surrogate medical examiner’s] reliance on actual conversations with [the original medical examiner] or based on [the surrogate medical examiner’s] quoting or testifying to anything specific that [the original medical examiner] related, to him. There was no specific objection by defense counsel based on a confrontation violation; therefore, this issue has not been preserved for review.
Id. at 871. Therefore, similar to the court in Geralds and Capehart, the court in Schoenwetter only addressed whether section 90.704 was violated; not whether the Confrontation Clause was violated. As a result, -those cases do not necessarily permit a surrogate medical examiner to testify to conclusions or other subjective analysis made in an autopsy report where the defendant objects on Confrontation Clause grounds.
While the court in Banmah was correct that “the determination of whether the witness was qualified to express an expert opinion was a matter within the discretion of the trial judge,”
■Nevertheless, this is not to say that a surrogate medical examiner- may - never testify as to the cause and manner of death of a victim after reviewing another medical examiner’s report. So long as testimonial hearsay is not revealed at trial through the surrogate medical examiner’s testimony, the Confrontation Clause is not implicated.
Here, Dr. Garavaglia revealed testimonial hearsay included within Dr. Gore’s report when she testified to Dr. Gore’s conclusion concerning A.S.’s cause of death.
V. Conclusion
We hold that an autopsy report prepared pursuant to chapter 406, Florida Statutes, is testimonial hearsay under the Confrontation Clause. Such autopsy reports are admitted for the truth of the matter asserted, include solemn declarations or affirmations of fact, and are prepared for the primary purpose of establishing some fact that is likely to be used at trial. In this case, Dr. Gore did not testify at trial, and Appellant was not provided a prior opportunity to cross-examine him. Therefore, it was error for the court to allow the admission of Dr. Gore’s autopsy report into evidence. However, we find that such error was harmless because, under the totality of circumstances, there is no reasonable possibility that the admission of the report affected the outcome of the trial.
We also hold that notwithstanding section 90.704, Florida Statutes, the Confrontation Clause is violated by a surrogate medical examiner’s testimony that reveals testimonial hearsay contained within an otherwise inadmissible autopsy report. In this case, Dr. Garavaglia’s testimony as to Dr. Gore’s conclusion that A.S.’s death was a homicide was improper. However, Dr. Garavaglia also testified to her own independent conclusion that A.S.’s death was a homicide. Accordingly, considering the admission of the entire autopsy report was harmless error, so was the testimony of Dr. Garavaglia that revealed statements within the report.
Based on our holdings, we certify conflict with Banmah v. State,
Notes
. Appellant’s neighbor testified that, in the middle of the night, Appellant moved his car from the driveway into .the garage.
. The court subsequently entered a one-page form order without explication or citations of authority.
. The autopsy report included Dr.. Gore's original findings and conclusion as well as his amended findings and conclusions.
.For example, in a prior case, Dr. Gore went into great detail in his autopsy report about a heart that did not exist because it had previously been donated and transplanted prior to the autopsy.
. In United States v. Feliz,
. Other federal circuit courts, when addressing petitions for habeas corpus relief, have also found that there is no "clearly established law” on whether an autopsy report is testimonial under the Confrontation Clause. See, e.g., Hensley v. Roden,
. For state courts that have concluded that an autopsy report is testimonial hearsay under the Confrontation Clause, see, for example: People v. Lewis,
. The fact that the report may qualify under a state hearsay exception is not significant to our analysis. State law labels have no effect on the admissibility of the statement under the Confrontation Clause. See Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 322-24,
. Dr. Gore’s report stated that the autopsy of A.S.’s body was performed pursuant to chapter 406, Florida Statutes.
. Justice Thomas is the only Supreme Court Justice that adheres to the view that heightened solemnity is a testimonial prerequisite, see Williams,
. Appellant did not object to the introduction of the photographs into evidence.
. For this reason, we affirm, without further discussion, the trial court's denial of Appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal, which he raised as an additional ground for reversal.
. Dr. Garavaglia also revealed other statements contained within Dr. Gore's report during her testimony. However, based on our conclusion that the admission of the entire report was harmless error, we decline to determine whether these statements and find