Dying declaration survives ‘Crawford’ challenge
Who needs law school to understand the dying declaration?
One can pretty much learn everything you need to know about this well-known exception to the hearsay rule from all those film noir classics churned out by Hollywood in the 40s and 50s.
The story line is familiar enough.
Sultry bombshell Ruby comes across the bullet-riddled body of her lover, Rick, in some seedy alley.
Rick, with his dying breath, fingers Big Louie.
Ruby tearfully recounts Rick’s last words at trial and the jury dutifully sends Big Louie off on his date with the electric chair.
It’s comforting to know that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent dealings with the Confrontation Clause have left some tried-and-true bromides intact.
At least that’s what the Virginia Court of Appeals concluded last week in a case involving the murder of Dominic Joyner in Norfolk.
Joyner suffered his fatal wounds on October 19, 2005.
Tanisha Naar was Joyner’s boyfriend. Naar found Joyner lying in a pool of blood on her bathroom floor. Joyner had been shot once in the head and three times in the chest.
Slipping in and out of consciousness, Joyner told Naar, “Darin Satterwhite did it.”
Naar was calling for help at the time and Joyner’s statement was loud enough for a 911 operator to overhear.
Not only that, Joyner told the same thing to police detectives who arrived at the scene before he was taken to a hospital by paramedics.
Joyner died in the hospital six weeks later and Satterwhite went to trial for murder.
Satterwhite’s lawyer tried to argue that Joyner’s statements were inadmissible hearsay, pointing to the fact that the murder victim lingered in a hospital for six weeks before his death.
But the Virginia Court of Appeals concluded that Joyner’s statements fit comfortably within the dying declaration exception to the state’s hearsay rule.
“It is an immaterial fortuity that modern medicine extended Joyner’s life as long as it did, particularly given the extent of his injuries. The only issue is whether his in extremis condition at the time of his statements warranted the trial court’s conclusion that they came within the scope of the dying declaration exception,” the court said.
The big issue for the court, however, was whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington affected the admissibility of dying declarations.
In Crawford, the Court held that the admission of “testimonial” evidence violates the Confrontation Clause unless the defendant has the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.
But the state court of appeals in this case said that Crawford doesn’t apply to dying declarations and other “historic exceptions” to the hearsay ruled.
The court explained that for “all its novelty, Crawford’s holding left intact many aspects of the conventional understanding of the Confrontation Clause.
“To be sure, though Crawford did not involve dying declarations, it made a point of steering clear of the subject by acknowledging: ‘Although many dying declarations may not be testimonial, there is authority for admitting even those that clearly are. … If this exception must be accepted on historical grounds, it is sui generis.” (Satterwhite v. Virginia)
- Pat Murphy
