Login | December 21, 2024
Court decides case about statements made to police after Cincinnati shooting
KATHLEEN MALONEY
Supreme Court
Public Information Office
Published: December 20, 2024
Initial statements made to police by a witness to a Cincinnati shooting were not testimonial because the officer’s primary purpose at that stage was to address an emergency situation, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled recently. However, statements the witness made after the suspect was apprehended were testimonial because there was no longer an emergency.
The Supreme Court explained that when a witness’s testimonial statement is admitted into evidence in a case, it violates the defendant’s constitutional right to confrontation if the defendant does not have the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.
In the Court’s lead opinion, Justice Patrick F. Fischer wrote that the Cincinnati shooting witness, Doniesha Monroe, made statements that evolved from being nontestimonial to testimonial during the course of police questioning.
Monroe spoke with police after an August 2020 incident in downtown Cincinnati. Earlier, Monroe was talking to her ex-boyfriend, Quantez Wilcox, who was seated in his parked car. Keshawn Turner, Monroe’s boyfriend, approached them, and Turner and Monroe argued.
Wilcox later testified that he thought Turner was trying to pull a gun out of his holster. Wilcox responded by pulling his own gun, shooting Turner, and then fleeing in his car. Turner later died from the gunshot wound.
When a police officer arrived at the scene of the shooting, he questioned Monroe. The questioning was recorded by the officer’s body camera. Monroe immediately identified Wilcox as the shooter and provided details about him. About halfway through the 12-minute interview, the officer communicated the information over his radio to police dispatch and was informed that Wilcox had been apprehended. The officer asked Monroe a few more questions.
At Wilcox’s trial, Monroe did not appear in court to testify. Wilcox was found guilty of multiple felony counts, including murder.
Justice Fischer noted that when the officer began questioning Monroe, the officer had no indication that the shooting suspect had been apprehended. The Court found that the primary purpose of the initial questioning was to gather information necessary to respond to an ongoing emergency. Monroe’s statements during the initial questioning were nontestimonial, the opinion stated. The admission of these statements into evidence did not violate Wilcox’s right to confront witnesses against him at his trial, the Court determined.
However, it must next be determined whether Monroe’s initial statements were hearsay, which is typically not allowed to be admitted as evidence. That question is beyond the scope of what the Court accepted for review, Justice Fischer wrote. The Court remanded the case to the First District Court of Appeals to address this question and Wilcox’s other legal arguments.
For Monroe’s statements made after the officer was told Wilcox was in police custody, there was no longer an ongoing emergency, the Court determined. As the First District found, those statements were testimonial.
Justices Michael P. Donnelly and Jennifer Brunner joined Justice Fischer’s opinion.
Justice Melody Stewart concurred in judgment only, with a written opinion. She agreed with the lead opinion’s analysis of the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and with the remand to the First District. However, Justice Stewart asserted that the Court should not have reviewed the confrontation clause argument because the state did not raise the claim that there was an ongoing emergency in the courts below or its initial memorandum filed with the Supreme Court. Therefore, she concluded, the state forfeited the argument.
Justice R. Patrick DeWine concurred in part and dissented in part. After describing the entire bodycam video, he wrote that Monroe’s statements throughout were nontestimonial because the primary purpose of the police officer’s questioning was to help deal with an ongoing emergency. That purpose did not change during the course of the questioning, Justice DeWine explained.
Even if the lead opinion were correct, the admission of the full video was harmless error, he wrote. He found that the statements made in the second part of the video repeated statements that Monroe already made in the first part. Because Monroe’s statements in the second part of the video were cumulative of her statements earlier in the video, the statements in the second part could not have prejudiced Wilcox and didn’t impact the verdict, Justice DeWine concluded.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Judge Mary Katherine Huffman of the Second District Court of Appeals joined Justice DeWine’s opinion. Judge Huffman sat for Justice Joseph T. Deters.
The case is cited 2023-1204. State v. Wilcox, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-5719.