STATE OF OREGON, Respondent on Review, v. EDWARD ROGER COPELAND, Petitioner on Review.
(CC 090647486; CA A143210; SC S060370)
In the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon
Argued and submitted March 8, decision of Court of Appeals and judgment of circuit court affirmed July 25, 2013
306 P.3d 610
BREWER, J.
In this punitive contempt proceeding for violation of a Family Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA) restraining order, defendant challenges the admission in evidence of a deputy sheriff‘s certificate of service of the restraining order. Defendant asserts that admission of the certificate of service violated his confrontation right under
As explained below, we conclude that the out-of-court declaration made by the deputy sheriff who issued the certificate of service in the underlying FAPA proceeding here was not “witness” evidence that triggered defendant‘s confrontation right under
I. BACKGROUND
The pertinent facts, summarized from the Court of Appeals opinion, are few and undisputed. Defendant‘s then-wife, S, obtained a restraining order that prohibited defendant from coming within 150 feet of her home and other locations that she frequented, including the Savoy Tavern, where she worked. Id. at 364. The next day, Deputy Sheriff Schweitzer certified by written proof of service that he had personally served defendant with the restraining order that day. Several weeks later, S was working at the Savoy
The state charged defendant with punitive contempt under
Defendant appealed, renewing his constitutional objections to the admission of the certificate of service. In a written opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed. First, the court rejected defendant‘s federal constitutional argument, citing its prior decision in State v. Tryon, 242 Or App 51, 59, 255 P3d 498 (2011), where it had held that the admission of a return of service of a restraining order did not violate the defendant‘s right to confrontation under the
The court then noted that, in this case, defendant had acknowledged that some official records fall under an “historical exception” to the confrontation right, and that defendant had argued only that, in the context of official records, the historical exception pertained solely to proof of “collateral” matters. Id. at 366. Thus, the court concluded that “[t]he inquiry in this case reduces to whether the submission of a public record to establish an essential—as opposed to ‘collateral‘—fact in a criminal proceeding falls within such an ‘historical exception’ to confrontation.” Id. at 367. Relying on its own prior case law, the court concluded that the official records exception to the state confrontation right applied equally to the proof of “essential” facts as it did to “collateral” facts. Id. at 369. In a concurring opinion, Judge Sercombe stated that he was “not sure that the analysis in William continues to be correct” in light of State v. Birchfield, 342 Or 624, 157 P3d 216 (2007), where this court held that the admission of a criminalist‘s laboratory report without either requiring the state to produce the criminalist at trial to testify or demonstrating that the criminalist was “unavailable” violated
On review, defendant does not dispute that the certificate of service was a qualifying official record under
“Records, reports, statements or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth:
“(a) The activities of the office or agency;
“(b) Matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, in criminal cases matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel * * *”2
However, defendant asserts that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that its admission did not violate his state and federal constitutional confrontation rights. As part of the “first things first” methodology, we consider state constitutional issues before we consider federal claims. Campbell, 299 Or at 647.
With respect to
In concluding that the evidence was admissible, defendant argues, the Court of Appeals made two mistakes. First, defendant argues that the court misapplied this court‘s decisions discussing the existence of historical exceptions to the confrontation right under
II. ARTICLE I, SECTION 11, ANALYSIS
In Priest v. Pearce, 314 Or 411, 415-16, 840 P2d 65 (1992), this court held that, when construing a provision of the original Oregon Constitution, we engage in a three-part analysis. We examine the text in its context, the historical circumstances of the adoption of the provision, and the case law that has construed it. Id. Our goal is to ascertain the meaning most likely understood by those who adopted the provision. The purpose of that analysis is not to freeze the meaning of the state constitution in the mid-nineteenth century. Rather it is to identify, in light of the meaning understood by the framers, relevant underlying principles that may inform our application of the constitutional text to modern circumstances. State v. Davis, 350 Or 440, 446, 256 P3d 1075 (2011).
“The rule, although sanctioned by constitutional declaration, like all general rules, has its exceptions. It does not apply to such documentary evidence to establish collateral facts, as would be admissible under the rules of the common law in other cases.”
Id. The court did not apply that exception in Saunders, however, nor, since Lonergan, has the court had a further occasion to consider whether there are other types of hearsay evidence to which the confrontation right under
A. The Campbell test
In the meantime, though, we have had several occasions to discuss in detail the general confrontation requirements of
“The Confrontation Clause operates in two separate ways to restrict the range of admissible hearsay. First, in conformity with the Framers’ preference for face-to-face accusation, the Sixth Amendment establishes a rule of necessity. In the usual case * * *, the prosecution must either produce, or demonstrate the unavailability of, the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant. * * *
“The second aspect operates once a witness is shown to be unavailable. * * * [T]he Clause countenances only hearsay marked with such trustworthiness that ‘there is no material departure from the reason of the general rule.’ * * *
“The Court has applied this ‘indicia of reliability’ requirement principally by concluding that certain hearsay exceptions rest upon such solid foundations that admission of virtually any evidence within them comports with the ‘substance of the constitutional protection.’ * * *
“In sum, when a hearsay declarant is not present for cross-examination at trial, the Confrontation Clause normally requires a showing that he is unavailable. Even then, his statement is admissible only if it bears adequate ‘indicia of reliability.’ Reliability can be inferred without more in a case where the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception. In other cases, the evidence must be excluded, at least absent a showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” [Roberts, 448 US] at 65-66, 100 S Ct 2531 (citations and footnotes omitted).
State v. Moore, 334 Or 328, 333-34, 49 P3d 785 (2002) (quoting Roberts in explaining decision in Campbell).
In Campbell, we “adopt[ed] the reasoning of the Supreme Court of the United States in determining what constitutes unavailability of a hearsay declarant and what constitutes adequate indicia of reliability of hearsay declarations to satisfy our state constitutional confrontation clause.” 299 Or at 648. We did so “on independent and separate state grounds,” thus implicitly concluding that
We returned to the confrontation requirement of
“Accordingly, we reaffirm the unavailability requirement and the methodology articulated in Campbell and subsequent cases. Before the state may introduce into evidence a witness‘s out-of-court declarations against a criminal defendant, the state must produce the witness at trial or demonstrate that the witness is unavailable to testify.”
Later, in Birchfield, we again followed the test set out in Campbell. At issue in Birchfield was whether the admission of a laboratory report at the defendant‘s trial violated his confrontation right under
“The right to meet an opposing witness face to face cannot be transformed into a duty to procure that opposing witness for trial. It is the state that seeks to adduce the evidence as to which the criminalist will testify. The defendant has a constitutional right to confront the proponent of that evidence, the criminalist. The legislature may require the defendant to assert that right or to design a procedure to determine whether the defendant agrees that a written report will suffice. But, to require that a defendant do more changes the right to insist that the state present evidence the ‘old-fashioned way’ into an obligation to procure a witness for the state.
“We hold that the trial court‘s admission of the laboratory report without requiring the state to produce at trial the criminalist who prepared the report or to demonstrate that the criminalist was unavailable to testify violated defendant‘s right to confront the witness against him under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution. We need not reach the question of whether the admission of the laboratory report also violated the federal Confrontation Clause.”
As explained below, unlike the challenged evidence in this case, the evidence that we rejected in Birchfield contained investigative facts and opinions involving suspected criminal activity. Id. at 626. Accordingly, we properly concluded that it was subject to the defendant‘s confrontation right under
B. Animating principles of the confrontation right
As noted,
The state and federal confrontation provisions were a response to historical abuses involving the civil-law mode of criminal procedure that prevailed in sixteenth and seventeenth century England and colonial America when ex parte examinations were used as evidence in criminal trials. Crawford, 541 US at 43-50. “It was th[o]se practices that the Crown deployed in notorious treason cases like [Sir Walter] Raleigh‘s; that the Marian [bail and committal] statutes invited; that English law‘s assertion of a right to confrontation was meant to prohibit; and that the founding-era rhetoric decried.” Id. at 50. The framers were “keenly” aware that the “[i]nvolvement of government officers in the production of testimony with an eye toward trial presents unique potential for prosecutorial abuse.” Id. at 56 n 7. The people adopted confrontation guarantees to ensure the reliability
Previous decisions by this court are consistent with that understanding. In Lonergan, the court stated that
“[t]he essential purpose of confrontation * * * is to secure for the accused the opportunity of cross-examination. However, it is recognized that there is a secondary advantage to be gained by the personal appearance of the witness before the court and jury where his testimony is orally given. This advantage is stated by Professor Wigmore as follows: ‘the judge and the jury are enabled to obtain the elusive and incommunicable evidence of a witness’ deportment while testifying, and a certain subjective, moral effect is produced upon the witness.’ 5 Wigmore, Evidence 3d ed 125, § 1395.
“In 5 Wigmore, Evidence 3d ed 127, § 1396, the author states:
“‘* * * [T]he secondary advantage * * * is an advantage to be insisted upon whenever it can be had. No one has doubted that it is highly desirable, if only it is available. But it is merely desirable. Where it cannot be obtained, the requirement ceases. * * *‘”
201 Or at 173-74 (emphasis omitted). In Smyth, 286 Or at 300, the court amplified:
“In our system a defendant is not tried on a dossier compiled in prior hearings, no matter how fairly and judiciously conducted. His guilt must be established at the trial by evidence that convinces a factfinder beyond a reasonable doubt. * * * As the United States Supreme Court stated in Barber [v. Page, 390 US 719, 725, 88 S Ct 1318, 20 L Ed 2d 255 (1968)], ‘[t]he right to confrontation is basically a trial right. It includes both the opportunity to cross-examine and the occasion for the jury to weigh the demeanor of the witness.‘”
Two modern practices most closely resemble the historical abuses against which the confrontation right was meant to guard. The first is the use in a criminal proceeding of statements obtained during police interrogations. Crawford, 541 US at 52-53, 68. “Statements taken by police officers in the course of interrogations * * * bear a striking resemblance to examinations by justices of the peace in England” who were discharging “essentially [an]
The second involves the use of prior testimony concerning the guilt of the defendant in lieu of live testimony from the same witness at the defendant‘s present trial. From the beginning of its jurisprudence concerning
Given that historical context, we conclude that the framers of the Oregon Constitution likely were influenced to adopt the
C. The official records hearsay exception
After the general rule prohibiting hearsay crystallized by the beginning of the eighteenth century, several “classes of hearsay statements continued to be received as before.” See John Henry Wigmore, 5 Evidence in Trials at Common Law § 1426, 256 (James H. Chadbourn rev 1974). Those historical hearsay exceptions included, among others, qualifying official records. Id. § 1426 at 257. Official records have long been “admissible in evidence on account of their public nature, though their authenticity be not confirmed by the usual tests of truth; namely, the swearing and the cross examination of the persons who prepared them.” Gaines v. Relf, 53 US (12 How) 472, 570, 13 L Ed 1071 (1851). The official records hearsay exception permitted the admission of “official registers or records kept by persons in public office in which they [were] required, either by statute or by the nature of their office, to write down particular transactions occurring in the course of their public duties or under their personal observation.” Evanston v. Gunn, 99 US 660, 666, 25 L Ed 306 (1878). The exception rests on a “presumption that public officers do their duty.” Wigmore, § 1632 at 618. “The fundamental circumstance is that an official duty exists to make an accurate statement, and that this special and weighty duty will usually suffice as a motive to incite the officer to its fulfillment.” Id.
To say that such documents are deemed reliable, though, does not fully answer a confrontation challenge under
D. The collateral facts confrontation “exception”
The so-called collateral facts “exception” to the confrontation right has been referred to, and applied, in two distinct patterns of circumstances that do not necessarily implicate identical principles. In one line of cases, perhaps best represented by the United States Supreme Court‘s decision in Dowdell v. United States, 221 US 325, 31 S Ct 590, 55 L Ed 753 (1911), courts have determined that the admission of challenged evidence did not violate a defendant‘s confrontation right, because the evidence did not constitute the declaration of a witness with respect to the defendant‘s guilt or innocence. In Dowdell, the Court considered a statutory codification of the
“In the present case, the judge, clerk of the court, and the official reporter were not witnesses against the accused within the meaning of this provision of the statute. They were not asked to testify to facts concerning their guilt or innocence. They were simply required to certify, in accordance with a practice approved by the supreme court of the Philippine Islands, as to certain facts regarding the course of trial in the court of first instance. The taking of such certification involved no inquiry into the guilt or innocence of the accused; it was only a method which the court saw fit to adopt to make more complete the record of the proceedings in the court below, which it was called upon to review. Where a court, upon suggestion of the diminution of the
record, orders a clerk of the court below to send up a more ample record, or to supply deficiencies in the record filed, there is no production of testimony against the accused, within the meaning of this provision as to meeting witnesses face to face, in permitting the clerk to certify the additional matter.”
Interestingly, in reaching that conclusion, the Court relied on the Michigan Supreme Court‘s decision in People v. Jones, 24 Mich 215 (1872), a case that Cooley also cited in his discussion of the collateral facts exception.5 Jones, however, involved a different sort of problem. In that case, the defendant was charged with attempting to set fire to a clothing store with intent to injure the insurer of the store. An element for conviction was proof that the insurer was authorized to do business in the state, which the prosecutor offered to show by means of a certificate from the Secretary of State. See Gregory v. State, 40 Md App 297, 313, 391 A2d 437 (1978) (so describing Jones). Against a confrontation objection, the court stated:
“We do not think the provision of the [Michigan] constitution securing to the defendant in a criminal prosecution the right ‘to be confronted with the witnesses against him’ can apply to the proof of facts in their nature essentially and purely documentary, and which can only be proved by the original, or by a copy officially authenticated in some way, especially when the fact to be proved comes up collaterally, as in the present case. In such a case, it would, in fact, be impossible to apply it, except by requiring the attendance and testimony of the secretary of state, to the fact of the filing of the papers, etc., to which he has certified. We have been cited to no case, and are not aware of any, which would authorize us to reject the certificates on this ground.”
Jones, 24 Mich at 225. In contrast to Dowdell, the document at issue in Jones was proffered to prove an element of the charged offense. The court nonetheless rejected a confrontation challenge because the fact to be proved—that is, the existence of the certificate itself—was essentially documentary.
Most importantly for our purposes here, the collateral facts doctrine actually is not an exception to the confrontation right at all. Rather, qualifying documents are admissible in the face of a confrontation objection because they do not contain the statement of a “witness” for purposes of the constitutional guarantee. Dowdell, 221 US at 330-31.
E. Official records and the confrontation right
Contrary to defendant‘s view, there are other arrays of circumstances in which the admission of documentary evidence has been held not to violate a defendant‘s confrontation right. One such array, embodied in the official records doctrine, dates back in criminal cases to at least the eighteenth century in England. That doctrine does not focus in particular on whether the proffered evidence goes to an element of a charged offense, as opposed to collateral facts.
In Aickles, the defendant was indicted for the felony of prematurely returning from overseas exile after being discharged from prison. Thus, the date of the defendant‘s discharge was an essential element of the charge. To establish that date, the trial court admitted prison records, which included a turnkey‘s entry showing the defendant‘s release date. 168 Eng Rep at 298. The defendant asserted that the prosecution should have produced the turnkey who made the underlying entry rather than the clerk of the prison papers. But the admission of the evidence was upheld, because “the law reposes such a confidence in public officers, that it presumes they will discharge their several trusts with accuracy and fidelity; and therefore whatever acts they do in discharge of their public duty may be given in evidence, and shall be taken to be true.” Id. The court explained that “[t]he daily book of a public prison is good evidence to prove the time of a prisoner‘s discharge,” and that there was no difference between civil and criminal cases with respect to such evidence. Id. at 298 n 1.7
The official records doctrine has long been recognized in the United States as well. In his 1804 criminal-law treatise, Leonard MacNally explained that “[t]he books of public offices, and of public bodies, which of course are not interested in the event of the trial, are admissible evidence.” L. MacNally, Rules of Evidence on Pleas of the Crown 475 (Philadelphia 1804). In his 1842 treatise, Simon Greenleaf stated:
“We are next to consider the admissibility and effect of the public documents, we have been speaking of, as instruments of evidence. And here it may be generally observed
that to render such documents, when properly authenticated, admissible in evidence, their contents must be pertinent to the issue. It is also necessary that the document be made by the person, whose duty it was to make it, and that the matter it contains be such as belonged to his province, or came within his official cognizance and observation. Documents having these requisites are, in general, admissible to prove, either prima facie or conclusively, the facts they recite.”
Simon Greenleaf, 1 A Treatise on the Law of Evidence § 491, 538 (1972 reprint of first ed 1842). See also White v. United States, 164 US 100, 104, 17 S Ct 38, 41 L Ed 365 (1896) (observing that discharge entries from jail records “would be evidence in and of themselves” to show whether a particular prisoner was present in court, where the defendant was charged with defrauding the government while employed to bring witnesses to court); Gaines, 53 US at 570 (recognizing “public or official writings” exception and noting that “[t]he same rule prevails in the courts of all of the states of this Union“); United States v. Johns, 4 US 412, 415, 1 L Ed 888 (CC Pa 1806) (a copy of ship‘s manifest that custom-house officers were required to maintain was “clearly admissible” to show the value of a ship—that is, harm to the victim—in criminal prosecution for fraudulently sinking the ship with intent to defraud insurer); Heike v. United States, 192 F 83 (2d Cir 1911) (public dock records showing cargo weight admissible in prosecution for importing goods at less than true weight).
The content of official records that is admissible in the absence of confrontation is confined to matters that must be recorded pursuant to an official administrative duty and may not include investigative or gratuitous facts or opinions. Salte v. Thomas, 127 Eng Rep 104 (1802) (prison records admissible to show dates of defendant‘s confinement, but not cause of confinement; distinguishing Aickles accordingly); Olender v. United States, 210 F2d 795, 801 (9th Cir 1954) (information set out in an official record “based upon general investigations and upon information gleaned second hand from random sources must be excluded“). One of the most clearly expressed statements of that limitation is found in Commonwealth v. Slavski, 245 Mass 405, 140 NE 465, 469
“The principle which seems fairly deducible from [those decisions] is that a record of a primary fact made by a public officer in the performance of official duty is or may be made by legislation competent prima facie evidence as to the existence of that fact, but that records of investigations and inquiries conducted, either voluntarily or pursuant to requirement of law, by public officers concerning causes and effects and involving the exercise of judgment and discretion, expressions of opinion, and making conclusions are not admissible as evidence as public records.”
Greenleaf acknowledged a similar limitation:
“In regard to official registers, we have already stated the principles, on which these books are entitled to credit; to which it is only necessary to add, that where the books possess all the requisites there mentioned, they are admissible as competent evidence of the facts they contain. But it is to be remembered, that they are not, in general, evidence of any facts not required to be recorded in them, and which did not occur in the presence of the registering officer.”
Greenleaf, 2 Evidence § 493 at 540. Likewise:
“In regard to certificates, given by persons in official station, the general rule is, that the law never allows a certificate of a mere matter of fact, not coupled with any matter of law, to be admitted as evidence. If the person was bound to record the fact, then the proper evidence is a copy of the record, duly authenticated. But, as to matters, which he was not bound to record, his certificate, being extraofficial, is merely the statement of a private person, and will therefore be rejected. So, where an officer‘s certificate is made evidence of certain facts, he cannot extend its effect to other facts, by stating them also in the certificate; but such parts of the certificate will be suppressed. The same rules are applied to an officer‘s return.”
Id. § 498 at 544-45.
Turning to the particular type of evidence at issue in this case, at common law a sheriff‘s return of service was
The original Deady Code adopted a comparable view. The code included extensive provisions governing the admission of a broad range of official records,
It is true that the Deady Code provided that affiants in civil actions were “witnesses.” See
The code provided that “there are four kinds of evidence,” among them “the testimony of witnesses” and “writings.”
“that, which suffices for the proof of a particular fact, until contradicted and overcome [by] other evidence. For example;
the certificate of a recording officer is primary evidence of a record; but it may be afterwards overcome upon proof that there is no such record.”
To recapitulate: Records made by a public officer in the performance of an official administrative duty are primary evidence of the facts stated in them. Although official records may contain hearsay declarations, such declarations are not “witness” statements that offend a defendant‘s confrontation right if they are confined to matters that the officer is bound by administrative duty to report and do not include investigative or gratuitous facts or opinions. See, e.g., Slavski, 140 NE at 469; see also Driggers, 95 P at 618; Lee, 128 P at 331-33. That understanding is consistent with the principles that animate the confrontation right because it forecloses the admission, in the guise of official records, of ex parte examinations of criminal suspects or witnesses or prior witness testimony that the right was meant to guard against. It also is consistent with the rationale of our decision in Birchfield, where we applied
F. Application
With that understanding in mind, we return to the issue in this case: Whether, in the absence of a showing that the declarant was unavailable to testify, the admission of the deputy sheriff‘s certificate of service of the FAPA restraining order in defendant‘s contempt trial violated his confrontation right under
“The county sheriff shall serve the respondent personally [with a FAPA restraining order] unless the petitioner elects to have the respondent served personally by a private party or by a peace officer who is called to the scene of a domestic disturbance at which the respondent is present, and who is able to obtain a copy of the order within a reasonable amount of time. Proof of service shall be made in accordance with
ORS 107.720 . When the order does not contain the respondent‘s date of birth and service is effected by the sheriff or other peace officer, the sheriff or officer shall verify the respondent‘s date of birth with the respondent and shall record that date on the order or proof of service entered into the Law Enforcement Data System underORS 107.720 .”
“Whenever a restraining order, as authorized by
ORS 107.095 (1)(c) or(d) ,107.716 or107.718 , that includes a security amount and an expiration date pursuant toORS 107.095 ,107.716 or107.718 and this section, is issued and the person to be restrained has actual notice of the order, the clerk of the court or any other person serving the petition and order shall immediately deliver to a county sheriff a true copy of the affidavit of proof of service, on which it is stated that personal service of the petition and order was served on the respondent, and copies of the petition and order. *** Upon receipt of a copy of the order and notice of completion of any required service by a member of a law enforcement agency, the county sheriff shall immediately enter the order into the Law Enforcement Data System maintained by the Department of State Police and into the databases of the National Crime Information Center of the United States Department of Justice. *** The sheriff shall provide the petitioner with a true copy of any requiredproof of service. Entry into the Law Enforcement Data System constitutes notice to all law enforcement agencies of the existence of the order. ***”12
Taken together, those statutes imposed administrative duties on the deputy sheriff to serve the restraining order on defendant personally, to make proof of that service, and to make corresponding entries in pertinent law enforcement databases to provide notice of the existence of the order.13 The deputy issued the certificate pursuant to those duties in the underlying restraining order proceeding, and it did not contain any investigative or gratuitous facts or opinions.14 Accordingly, the certificate did not contain the statement of a witness so as to trigger defendant‘s confrontation right under
We emphasize that our holding in this case is a limited one. This case does not present an occasion to contemplate a broad or universal definition of the term “witness” for purposes of the confrontation right under
III. SIXTH AMENDMENT ANALYSIS
We turn to defendant‘s Sixth Amendment challenge. In Crawford, the United States Supreme Court held that the confrontation clause prohibits the admission of out-of-court statements that are testimonial in nature, unless the witness appears at trial or, if the witness is unavailable, the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. 541 US at 53-54. As discussed, the state does not contend that Schweitzer was unavailable or that defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him, so the only question is whether the officer‘s certificate of service was testimonial. The state argues that it was not testimonial, because (1) it was not generated in response to a law enforcement or other prosecutorial request, and (2) it falls under the public records hearsay exception, which, the state argues, is inherently nontestimonial.
A. Documentary evidence and the Crawford test
In Crawford, the Court described a testimonial statement as one made by an “accuser” that can be characterized as “a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.” 541 US at 51 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 US 305, 129 S Ct 2527, 2538-40, 174 L Ed 2d 314 (2009), the Court applied Crawford to documents, holding that sworn certificates prepared to show the results of a forensic analysis of seized substances in that case were testimonial statements. In so holding, the Court rejected an argument that all evidence falling within the well-established hearsay exception for business records at common law is admissible absent confrontation. Melendez-Diaz, 557 US at 321. Business and public records generally do not raise confrontation concerns, the Court reasoned, “not because they qualify under an exception to the hearsay rules, but because—having been created for the administration of an entity‘s affairs and not for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact at trial—they are not testimonial.” Id. at 324.
The Court in Melendez-Diaz further explained that the forensic certificates were made for the purpose of proving
Although Melendez-Diaz rejected the premise that all documents falling within the historical hearsay exception are admissible without confrontation, the certificate of service at issue here is readily distinguishable from the forensic certificates held to be testimonial in Melendez-Diaz. First, the certificate of service was not prepared in response to a request made by law enforcement during the course of an investigation. In fact, the violation of the restraining order did not occur until well after service was completed. Further, unlike in Melendez-Diaz, the statutes that required production of the certificate of service in this case,
Later decisions of the Court reinforce those distinctions. In Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 US 647, 131 S Ct 2705, 180 L Ed 2d 610 (2011), the question presented was
“In all material respects, the laboratory report in this case resembles those in Melendez-Diaz. Here, as in Melendez-Diaz, a law-enforcement officer provided seized evidence to a state laboratory required by law to assist in police investigations[.] *** Like the analysts in Melendez-Diaz, [the analyst] tested the evidence and prepared a certificate concerning the result of his analysis. *** Like the Melendez-Diaz certificate, [the certificate here] is ‘formalized’ in a signed document. *** In sum, the formalities attending the ‘report of blood alcohol analysis’ are more than adequate to qualify [the analyst‘s] assertions as testimonial.”
Id. at 2717 (citations omitted). Justice Sotomayor concurred. In her view:
“To determine if a statement is testimonial, we must decide whether it has ‘a primary purpose of creating an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony.’ *** When the ‘primary purpose’ of a statement is ‘not to create a record for trial,’ ‘the admissibility of the statement is the concern of the state and federal rules of evidence, not the Confrontation Clause.‘”
Bullcoming, 131 S Ct at 2720 (Sotomayor, J., concurring) (quoting Michigan v. Bryant, 562 US 344, 131 S Ct 1143, 1155, 179 L Ed 2d 93 (2011) (internal citations omitted). Noting that Bullcoming was “not a case in which the State suggested an alternate purpose, much less an alternate primary purpose, for the BAC report,” such as to provide for medical treatment, Justice Sotomayor concluded that the primary purpose “is clearly to serve as evidence,” and its introduction without confrontation was therefore in error. Id. at 2722-23 (emphasis omitted).
Although a majority of the Williams Court agreed that an assessment of the primary purpose of an out-of-court statement is required to determine whether it is testimonial, a majority did not agree on the scope of that inquiry. The plurality asked whether the statement had “the primary purpose of accusing a targeted individual of engaging in criminal conduct.” 132 S Ct at 2242; see also id. at 2250-51 (Breyer, J., concurring). Justice Thomas disputed that the primary purpose of a testimonial statement must be to target an individual rather than to establish a fact for potential use in a criminal prosecution. Id. at 2261-63 (Thomas, J.,
B. Application
As discussed, the primary purpose for which the certificate of service in this case was created was to serve the administrative functions of the court system, ensuring that defendant, the respondent in the restraining order proceeding, received the notice to which he is statutorily and constitutionally entitled, establishing a time and manner of notice for purposes of determining when the order expires or is subject to renewal, and assuring the petitioner that the subject of the order knew of its existence. It was foreseeable that the certificate might be used in a later criminal prosecution to furnish proof that defendant had notice that the order had been entered against him. However, the more immediate and predominant purpose of service was to ensure that defendant could—and would—comply with the order—that is, avoid a violation, consistently with the primary goal of the FAPA process, which is “abuse prevention,” not punishment. See
Similarly, federal courts have held that warrants of deportation are nontestimonial when introduced in a later prosecution for illegal reentry into the United States. To
Finally, we reject defendant‘s suggestion that the certificate of service falls within the core class of testimonial statements identified in Crawford, in particular, those statements “made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.” 541 US at 52. In Melendez-Diaz, while referring to the quoted “objective witness” formulation, the Court repeatedly emphasized that it was the purpose for which the forensic certificates were created that rendered them testimonial. See 557 US at 311 (“sole purpose of the affidavits was to provide ‘prima facie evidence‘“); id. at 324 (certificates’ sole purpose was to provide evidence against the defendant); id. at 324 (certificates were “prepared specifically for use at petitioner‘s trial“).
It follows that the certificate of service was not testimonial, and its admission did not violate defendant‘s Sixth Amendment confrontation rights.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
Notes
“(4) In all prosecutions in which an analysis of a controlled substance or sample was conducted, a certified copy of the analytical report signed by the director of a state police forensic laboratory or the analyst or forensic scientist conducting the analysis shall be accepted as prima facie evidence of the results of the analytical findings.
“(5) Notwithstanding any statute or rule to the contrary, the defendant may subpoena the analyst or forensic scientist to testify at the preliminary hearing and trial of the issue at no cost to the defendant.”“The following are not excluded by [OEC 802, the hearsay rule] if the declarant is unavailable as a witness:
“(a) Testimony given as a witness at another hearing of the same or a different proceeding * * *, if the party against whom the testimony is now offered * * * had an opportunity and similar motive to develop the testimony by direct, cross, or redirect examination.”
