U.S. v. Magyari, 63 M.J. 123

First Principles: Constitutional Matters: Confrontation

1. the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment states that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him; under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Crawford v. Washington, in order for the prosecution to introduce testimonial out-of-court statements into evidence against an accused, the Confrontation Clause requires that the witness who made the statement be unavailable, and that the accused have had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness
2. the focus of the Confrontation Clause is to protect criminal defendants from prosecutorial abuse and the involvement of government officials in the production of testimony with an eye towards trial
3. if the declarant is unavailable to be cross-examined, the Confrontation Clause permits the admission of a hearsay statement in a criminal trial only if: (1) the statement falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception, or (2) it bears other particularized guarantees of trustworthiness

Core Criminal Law Subjects: Evidence: Hearsay › Generally

1. under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Crawford v. Washington, in order for the prosecution to introduce testimonial out-of-court statements into evidence against an accused, the Confrontation Clause requires that the witness who made the statement be unavailable, and that the accused have had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness
2. the admissibility of out-of-court statements under Crawford v. Washington hinges on whether the out-of-court statement comes within the scope of the Sixth Amendment because it bears testimony against an accused; the lynchpin of the Crawford decision is its distinction between testimonial and nontestimonial hearsay; where nontestimonial statements are at issue, the statements do not fall within Crawford’s scope and may be exempted from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether; however, the Crawford Court did not spell out a comprehensive definition of testimonial, leaving to lower courts the responsibility to determine which statements qualify as testimonial and fall within its scope; nevertheless, the Court identified three forms of core testimonial evidence; they include: (1) ex parte in-court testimony; (2) extrajudicial statements in formalized trial materials; and (3) statements made under circumstances that would cause a reasonable witness to believe they could be used at trial; further, the Court identified examples of testimonial hearsay, including prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and police interrogations
3. the application of Crawford v. Washington on the admission of testimonial out-of-court statements into evidence not only depends on the meaning of testimonial, but on the circumstances and context in which out-of-court statements are generated, and whether the out-of-court 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 by the government
4. in the context of random urinalysis screening, where the lab technicians do not equate specific samples with particular individuals or outcomes, and the sample is not tested in furtherance of a particular law enforcement investigation, the data entries of the technicians are not testimonial in nature; nonetheless, the lab results and reports must satisfy the standard for reliability established in Ohio v. Roberts
5. the data entries in appellant’s urinalysis lab report made by the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory technicians did not constitute testimonial statements within the scope of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause; the lab technicians handling samples worked in a nonadversarial environment, where they conducted routine series of tests requiring virtually no discretionary judgments; the lab technicians handling appellant’s particular sample had no reason to suspect him of wrongdoing, and no reason to anticipate that his sample would test positive and be used at a trial; the lab technicians were not engaged in a law enforcement function, a search for evidence in anticipation of prosecution or trial; rather, their data entries were simply a routine, objective cataloging of an unambiguous factual matter; because the lab technicians were merely cataloging the results of routine tests, the technicians could not reasonably expect their data entries would bear testimony against appellant at his court-martial
6. lab results or other types of routine records may become testimonial and fall within the scope of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause where an accused is already under investigation, and where the testing is initiated by the prosecution to discover incriminating evidence
7. if the declarant is unavailable to be cross-examined, the Confrontation Clause permits the admission of a hearsay statement in a criminal trial only if: (1) the statement falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception, or (2) it bears other particularized guarantees of trustworthiness
8. the accused’s urinalysis lab report satisfied the requirement of the Ohio v. Roberts test for admission of nontestimonial evidence that the evidence fell within a firmly rooted hearsay exception because the report was a record of regularly conducted activity of the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory that qualified as a business record under MRE 803(6)

Trial Stages: Appeals: Standards of Review, Burdens, etc.

1. when an error is not objected to at trial, plain error analysis applies; to prevail under a plain error analysis, appellant must show that: (1) there was an error; (2) it was plain or obvious; and (3) the error materially prejudiced a substantial right; if appellant meets his burden of showing plain error, the burden shifts to the Government to prove that any constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt