The Atlanta Gleaner.

Spratlin v. State, No. A22A1213, 2023 WL 1461666 (Ga. Ct. App. Feb. 2, 2023)
#confrontation clause #excited utterance hearsay exception #criminal trespass #get counseling
This case is about the trial court improperly conflating the hearsay and Confrontation Clause analysis during its consideration of admitting a deceased person’s statements to police.

The record shows that on January 26, 2020, Athens-Clarke County law enforcement officers responded to an incident at the home of Rosa Pearson, who was the defendant Spratlin's long-term partner and the mother of his two children. 

While Pearson was pulling into her driveway, Spratlin shot the windshield of her van with a BB gun, leaving it damaged with holes and cracks. Pearson, in the vehicle with one of their children, immediately drove away from the scene and called the police.

In that 911 call Pearson relayed that Spratlin fired a pellet gun at her vehicle, dropped the gun in the yard and left the scene on foot. Officers arrived at the home approximately six minutes later. When Pearson arrived and met them, the statements she made about the incident were captured on the body cameras of two officers. 

Officers apprehended Spratlin several hours later when a relative who lived on the same street as Pearson reported that he was at her home. Spratlin was indicted and tried on two counts of aggravated assault (family violence) and one count of criminal trespass.

At trial, the child who was in the van when Spratlin fired the gun did not testify. And tragically Pearson passed away (from unrelated natural causes) just weeks after the incident in question. Because Pearson was unavailable to testify, the State sought to admit her 911 call and the body-camera footage as nontestimonial “excited utterances.” 

Spratlin objected on the grounds that the statements were both inadmissible hearsay and violated the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. As to the Confrontation Clause arguments, Spratlin asserted the statements made during the 911 call and recorded on the officers’ body cameras were testimonial in nature because there was no ongoing emergency when Pearson called 911 or when she returned to the scene.

Following a pretrial hearing, the trial court ruled the statements were admissible as excited utterances. Spratlin argued to the trial court that the hearsay objection and Confrontation Clause objection were two separate and distinct issues. The trial court then responded as follows: “I think my ruling overrides your argument that the Confrontation Clause overrides the issue that the statements need to be excluded because they are excited utterances, and I'm just denying your motion ... I'm finding that the Confrontation Clause arguments do not apply in this case.”

Spratlin was convicted by the jury on the single count of criminal trespass but acquitted on the two counts of aggravated assault. At the motion for new trial hearing, the trial court once again considered Spratlin's argument that the 911 call recording and body-camera footage were admitted in violation of the Confrontation Clause. Again Spratlin asserted the trial court was conflating the hearsay and Confrontation Clause analysis. To its credit, in responding to this argument, the State acknowledged that a Confrontation Clause analysis and hearsay analysis are two separate and distinct questions.

The trial court denied Spratlin's motion for new trial. Again the trial court concluded Pearson’s statements “were not violations of the Confrontation Clause ... because each of the statements satisfied the excited utterances exception to the Georgia hearsay rule.” The trial court reasoned that when the challenged statements were made, Pearson “was still under the stress of excitement from her interaction with the Defendant.” This appeal followed.

The State argues the trial court properly concluded that this evidence falls squarely within an exception to the hearsay rule as excited utterances, but as to application of the Confrontation Clause, the State notes that “the trial court never appears to have either conducted a full Confrontation Clause analysis or rendered a distinct ruling on whether Pearson's statements were testimonial.” Indeed the State concedes that before and after trial, the trial court “appears to have conflated its assessment of hearsay with its Confrontation Clause analysis”— a concession the State repeated at oral argument before the Court.

Court of Appeals REVERSES. “We must vacate the trial court's judgment and remand for it to consider the issue anew, separating its hearsay and Confrontation Clause analyses.”

The Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution “imposes an absolute bar to admitting out-of-court statements in evidence when they are testimonial in nature, and when the defendant does not have an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.” And if the primary purpose of a statement is “to establish evidence that could be used in a future prosecution,” that statement is testimonial in nature. Importantly, only after a court determines that a statement is nontestimonial in nature do the “normal rules regarding the admission of hearsay apply.”

In a Confrontation Clause analysis, statements are nontestimonial in nature when made in “the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency.” If the answer to that question is “yes,” the court proceeds to consider the admissibility of statements under an exception to the hearsay rule.