Sarr v. State

2005 WY 67, 113 P.3d 1051, 2005 Wyo. LEXIS 78, 2005 WL 1384919
CourtWyoming Supreme Court
DecidedJune 13, 2005
Docket02-17
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2005 WY 67 (Sarr v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wyoming Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sarr v. State, 2005 WY 67, 113 P.3d 1051, 2005 Wyo. LEXIS 78, 2005 WL 1384919 (Wyo. 2005).

Opinion

HILL, Chief Justice.

[¶ 1] Appellant, Michael W. Sarr (Sarr), appears before this Court for the third time, upon further proceedings called for by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sarr v. Wyoming, -U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 297, 160 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004). He contends that his convictions were obtained in violation of the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution, that he may not be retried where a conviction is reversed because of the insufficiency of the evidence, and that the *1052 district court’s restitution order must be reversed. In accordance with the Memorandum Decision of the United States Supreme Court and its mandate, we too vacate the judgment and sentence of the district court. Thus, we reverse Sarr’s convictions on Counts I, V, and VI of the complaint and remand those matters for new trial. We previously reversed Count III and remanded it for new trial. Because the district court’s judgment has been vacated and because we remand all remaining counts for new trial, we must also vacate the district court’s sentence, including the restitution order, for reconsideration in light of any additional proceedings.

ISSUES

[¶ 2] Sarr provides this statement of the issues:

I. Whether [Sarr’s] rights under the Confrontation Clause to the Sixth Amendment were violated when prejudicial, testimonial tape-recorded hearsay of the unavailable victim was admitted at trial, requiring reversal of all of [Sarr’s] convictions.
II. Whether jeopardy attaches to the reversal of [Sarr’s] conviction for Count IV, prohibiting the State from retrying [Sarr] on that count. 1
III. Whether the district court’s order requiring [Sarr] to pay restitution is erroneous and requires reversal.

The State proposes the issues to be decided in this form:

I. Was introduction of the testimonial hearsay of the unavailable victim harmless error as to Count I?
II. Would retrial of [Sarr] on all remaining counts place him twice in jeopardy under the Wyoming and United States Constitutions?
III. Should [Sarr] be required to pay restitution on Count I and, upon retrial, any restitution attributable to Counts III, V, and VI?

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

[¶ 3] In February of 2001, Sarr was charged with seven counts of aggravated assault and battery. Those charges arose from acts of domestic violence committed by Sarr against Ann Wing. Throughout this opinion, as was the case with our prior opinions, we will differentiate between the seven counts by referring to them as Counts I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII. In Sarr v. State, 2003 WY 42, 65 P.3d 711 (Wyo.2003) (Sarr I) we set out the facts pertinent to this case. Sarr I, ¶¶ 3-11. Of central significance to this protracted litigation was the fact that Ann Wing drowned in her bathtub shortly after she gave a statement to the police concerning the acts of assault. Those statements incriminated Sarr with respect to all counts for which he was convicted. It is the admission of her statements, both in tape recorded form and as related to the jury by those who heard her give the statements, that implicate the Confrontation Clause here.

[¶ 4] After trial, Sarr was found guilty of Counts I and III-VI, but was found not guilty with respect to Count VII, thus that count is no longer at issue. Sarr I, ¶ 11. Count II was dismissed for reasons not evident of record, and thus it too is no longer at issue. In that same opinion we reversed the conviction for Count IV because of insufficient evidence and held that it could not be retried for reasons of double jeopardy, thus Count IV is also no longer at issue. We also reversed Count III, but remanded it for new trial. We affirmed the convictions for Counts I, V, and VI. Id. at ¶ 47. Upon his motion, we granted a rehearing to Sarr, and in that opinion clarified our reasoning as to why Sarr could be retried on Count III. The case was then remanded to the district court for those purposes. Sarr I; Sarr v. State, 2004 WY 20, 85 P.3d 439 (Wyo.2004) (Sarr II).

[¶ 5] On June 8, 2004, Sarr filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a memorandum decision entered on October 4, 2004, that court granted the petition and vacated the judgment of *1053 the Wyoming court. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision also remanded Sarr’s case to this Court for us to further consider it in light of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Sarr, — U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 297. Boiled down to its essence, the Crawford case stands for this proposition:

Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers’ design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law-as does Roberts, and as would an approach that exempted such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination. We leave for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of “testimonial.” Whatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a formal trial; and to police interrogations. These are the modern practices with closest kinship to the abuses at which the Confrontation Clause was directed.
In this case, the State admitted Sylvia’s testimonial statement against petitioner, despite the fact that he had no opportunity to cross-examine her. That alone is sufficient to make out a violation of the Sixth Amendment. Roberts notwithstanding, we decline to mine the record in search of indicia of reliability. Where testimonial statements are at issue, the only indicium of reliability sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation. [Footnote omitted.]

Crawford, 124 S.Ct. at 1374 (Crawford also reversed that court’s decision in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980)). In the interim, we have embraced the rule articulated in Crawford, although we also held that such errors are subject to a harmless error analysis under the standard applicable to errors of constitutional magnitude. Vigil v. State, 2004 WY 110, ¶¶ 18-26, 98 P.3d 172, ¶¶ 18-26 (Wyo.2004).

[¶ 6] It is agreed by the parties that the evidence at issue here was testimonial, and that it was admitted as substantive evidence to support Sarr’s convictions as to all remaining counts, and with respect to Counts III, V, and VI, it was the only evidence of Sarr’s guilt. Thus, Crawford

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Related

Sarr v. State
2007 WY 140 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 2007)

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Bluebook (online)
2005 WY 67, 113 P.3d 1051, 2005 Wyo. LEXIS 78, 2005 WL 1384919, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sarr-v-state-wyo-2005.