|
|
| 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | Search | Upcoming cases |
Public Information Home
Crime Victim’s Statement To Nurse During Treatment Held Non-Testimonial, Admissible at Trial
2005-0773. State v. Stahl, 2006-Ohio-5482.
Summit App. No. 22261, 2005-Ohio-1137. Judgment affirmed.
Resnick, Lundberg Stratton, O'Connor and O'Donnell, JJ., concur.
Moyer, C.J., Pfeifer and Lanzinger, JJ., dissent.
Opinion: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/rod/newpdf/0/2006/2006-Ohio-5482.pdf
(Nov. 8, 2006) In a case involving a crime victim who died of unrelated causes before her accused assailant was brought to trial, the Supreme Court of Ohio held today that the admissibility at trial of third-party “hearsay” testimony about statements made by a now-deceased witness depends on whether those statements were made “under circumstances that would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.”
In a 4-3 majority opinion authored by Justice Terrence O'Donnell, the Court ruled that, under the Confrontation Clause of the U.S. Constitution: (1) it is the expectation of the person making a statement that determines whether or not that statement is “testimonial” in nature, and (2) the intent of a questioner who evoked a declarant's statement is relevant to the admissibility of the statement only if the questioner's intent could affect a reasonable declarant's expectations.
In a 2004 decision, Crawford v. Washington, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a criminal defendant's constitutional right to confront his or her accuser prohibits the state from introducing third-party hearsay evidence about “testimonial” statements made by a witness to a crime when that witness does not appear at trial to provide sworn testimony and face cross-examination by the defendant.
In this case, James Stahl of Akron was charged with kidnapping and rape for an alleged sexual assault on Ann Mazurek in December 2003. The day after the assault, which involved a forced act of oral sex, Mazurek went to the Richfield police department to report the crime. After obtaining a statement from Mazurek in which she identified her attacker as Stahl and described the assault in detail, Officer Amy Ellis drove Mazurek to a special D.O.V.E. (Developing Options for Violent Emergencies) medical unit at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron. The D.O.V.E. unit provides specialized medical treatment of victims of sexual assaults and domestic violence.
Mazurek was examined and interviewed by Jennifer Markowitz, a nurse and coordinator of the D.O.V.E. unit, while Officer Ellis remained in the examination room. Markowitz took notes recording Mazurek's statements about the identity of her attacker and the circumstances of the assault. Markowitz also took photographs of the bodily areas affected, collected extensive tissue samples from Mazurek and collected her clothes for laboratory testing. Mazurek signed a standard consent form that authorized law enforcement officials to use tissue samples, photographs and information obtained during her examination as evidence in a subsequent criminal prosecution.
About five weeks after her assault, prior to the beginning of Stahl's trial on the criminal charges arising from the attack, Ms. Mazurek died from causes unrelated to the assault. During subsequent pretrial proceedings, the state indicated that it intended to offer trial testimony by nurse Markowitz relating the content of Ms. Mazurek's statements to Markowitz during her examination at the D.O.V.E. unit. Attorneys for Stahl filed a limiting motion to bar the state from presenting hearsay testimony by Markowitz relating Mazurek's statements. As grounds, they cited the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Crawford that trial courts may not admit hearsay evidence repeating “testimonial statements” made by an unavailable witness because such testimony deprives the defendant of his constitutional right to confront and cross-examine the absent witness.
The Summit County Court of Common Pleas granted the defense motion to exclude testimony by Markowitz relating Mazurek's statements during her medical examination. On review, the 9th District Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. The appellate panel ruled that Mazurek's statements to Markowitz were admissible against Stahl because they were not “testimonial” in nature but rather were a patient's explanation of her traumatic experience to a nurse in the course of receiving medical diagnosis and treatment, and therefore were not statements that Mazurek would reasonably have believed to be “available for use at a later trial.” Stahl appealed, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the 9th District's ruling.
Writing for the majority in today's decision, Justice O'Donnell affirmed the holding of the court of appeals. He distinguished the facts in Crawford from the facts of this case, pointing out that the “testimonial” statements excluded from evidence by the U.S. Supreme Court in Crawford were statements made during a witness' interrogation by police officers, while Mazurek's statements to Markowitz were made in a much different context. “In sharp contrast with the prosecution in Crawford, the state in the instant case seeks to introduce a statement made by a victim to a medical professional during an emergency-room examination identifying a person who allegedly raped her. Though made in the presence of a police officer, the identification elicited during the medical examination came to a medical professional in the ordinary course of conducting a medical examination, and no Miranda warnings preceded its delivery,” wrote Justice O'Donnell.
“Unlike Crawford, this case does not involve police interrogation. The court in Crawford concluded that the term ‘testimonial statement' applies ‘at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations.' Mazurek's statements to Markowitz do not fall within any of these specific examples, and we decline to expand that list to include statements made to a medical professional for purposes of receiving medical treatment or diagnosis.”
Justice O'Donnell also rejected arguments by Stahl that Mazurek's statements during her examination at the D.O.V.E. unit were inadmissible “custodial statements” because Mazurek had made the statements in the presence of Officer Ellis and had signed a written release allowing physical evidence and information from her examination to be used in the prosecution of her attacker. He noted that the release form signed by Mazurek did not refer to statements made by a patient, but merely authorized prosecutors to use physical evidence and medical information from the examination in a possible prosecution of the crime. Justice O'Donnell noted further that Mazurek had already given a statement to the Richfield police before being transported to the D.O.V.E. unit, and wrote that under those circumstances, repeating the same information to a nurse in the context of a medical examination did not render the latter statement one “that would lead an objective witness to believe that the statement identifying the perpetrator would be available for use at a later trial.”
The majority opinion was joined by Justices Alice Robie Resnick, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Maureen O'Connor.
Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger entered a dissenting opinion, joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, in which she agreed with the majority analysis that courts should focus on the expectation of a declarant in determining whether a declaration was “testimonial” in nature. Justice Lanzinger wrote, however, that she could not concur with the majority's holding that the statements made by Mazurek to Nurse Markowitz in this case were non-testimonial and therefore admissible against Stahl.
“Under any objective standard, Mazurek reasonably knew her statement could be used at Stahl's trial, and the trial court expressly found that she was aware of this fact. She authorized release of ‘information' to police for their prosecution of the crime,” wrote Justice Lanzinger. “The state argues that ‘statements' were not specifically mentioned. As the consent form is written, however, the broad term used reasonably includes anything she tells about the event— ‘information.' Officer Ellis's taking Mazurek to the D.O.V.E. unit after speaking with her and remaining during the signing of the consent form and the answers to questions about the event strengthen the conclusion that Mazurek knew her information would be used to prosecute. … Because her statement given at the D.O.V.E. unit was testimonial and its admission would violate the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.”
Contacts
Philip D. Bogdanoff, 330.643.2791, for the
State of Ohio and Summit County prosecutor's office.
Brian M. Pierce, 330.253.0785, for James G. Stahl.
Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Office of Public Information for the general public and news media. Opinion summaries are not prepared for every opinion released by the Court, but only for those cases considered noteworthy or of great public interest. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official headnotes or syllabi of Court opinions. The full text of this and other Court opinions from 1992 to the present are available online from the Reporter of Decisions: http://www.supremecourtofohio.gov/ROD/newpdf/. In the Full Text search box, enter the eight-digit case number at the top of this summary and click "Submit."