State v. Noorzai

423 P.3d 742, 292 Or. App. 248
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 6, 2018
DocketA159866
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 423 P.3d 742 (State v. Noorzai) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Noorzai, 423 P.3d 742, 292 Or. App. 248 (Or. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

DEHOOG, P. J.

*249Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction entered following a bench trial in which the trial court found him guilty of fourth-degree assault constituting domestic violence. Defendant assigns error to the court's pretrial ruling that a recorded 9-1-1 call would be admitted at trial.1 We conclude that, even though there was evidence in the record to support the finding that the recorded 9-1-1 call was the 9-1-1 call placed by the complainant, the record does not support the finding that the recording itself was an accurate recording of the call. As a result, the evidence was insufficient to establish the authenticity of the recording under OEC 901, and the trial court erred in admitting it. Furthermore, because the 9-1-1 call was qualitatively different from the state's other evidence, the error in admitting that evidence was not harmless. We therefore reverse and remand.

At trial, the court received the following evidence, most of which came in through testimony at a pretrial hearing regarding the complainant's unavailability to testify and through her medical records. Officer Matsukado of the Beaverton Police Department testified that he had responded to an incident involving the complainant and defendant on November 9, 2014. During his investigation, Matsukado confirmed that the complainant's address was the same as the address to which dispatch had sent him in response to a 9-1-1 call. According to Matsukado's log, he responded to the incident at approximately 4:00 p.m. When he arrived, paramedics were present and administering aid to the complainant; Matsukado subsequently followed them to the hospital to conduct an interview. In addition to interviewing the complainant, Matsukado took photographs of her abdomen.

At the pretrial hearing, the state played the disputed 9-1-1 recording. A voice on the recording states the date and time as November 9, 2014, at 15:53:56. A caller *250tells the 9-1-1 operator that her fiancé has hit her hard in the stomach. The caller also gives her address, which other evidence at trial showed to be the address of the complainant in this case. The caller repeatedly says that, when she returned home from school, her fiancé hit her in the stomach. She also reports having *744difficulty breathing. The caller identifies her attacker as her fiancé, provides his name, describes his appearance, and tells the operator his nationality and date of birth. Evidence later introduced at trial substantiated that defendant was the individual whom the caller had identified as her assailant. Finally, the name that the caller gave as her own was the name of the complainant in this case. The operator ended the call upon hearing emergency personnel arrive. According to a "certificate of authenticity" that accompanied the recording, the call ended at 15:59:21.2

After the state played the 9-1-1 recording for the trial court, defense counsel objected to its admission at trial, arguing that the state had failed to lay an adequate foundation to authenticate the recording. Acknowledging that the state had provided the certificate of authenticity, defendant argued that the certificate was insufficient to satisfy OEC 901 without testimony from at least one of the two participants in the call. In response, the state argued that the recording was a business record bearing a certificate of authenticity, and noted that, in the past, the state had routinely introduced 9-1-1 recordings without any further foundation. The certificate of authenticity on which the state relied purported to be prepared by the Washington County Consolidated Communications Agency (WCCCA) and stated that the "attached MP3 File" is "a true and accurate copy of the original." The trial court admitted the recording, stating, "All right. Thank you. I'm going to overrule that particular objection."

The trial court ultimately found the complainant unavailable for trial. The court explained that the 9-1-1 recording would be admitted as an excited utterance under OEC 803(2) (hearsay exception for excited utterances), and that redacted medical records from the complainant's *251emergency room visit would be admitted under OEC 803(4) (exception for certain statements made for purposes of obtaining medical care). In those records, several treatment providers documented the complainant's report of how her injury had occurred. For example, the complainant's chart notes indicate that she reported that her boyfriend had struck her several times in the abdomen. They also state that the complainant described defendant as having hit her so hard that she fainted and stopped breathing. Medical notes from approximately 5:00 p.m. indicate that the complainant told medical staff that the abdominal pain she was experiencing had worn off. Due to the complainant's report, the hospital ordered a CT scan of her abdomen, which "did not show anything worrisome."

The trial court proceeded with a bench trial. The parties agreed that the court would consider the 9-1-1 call and medical report evidence that the state had presented, and defendant stipulated that he and the complainant were living together in the same apartment on the date of the incident and had, at some point, been in an intimate relationship. The court dismissed other charges after the state acknowledged that it could not proceed on them, and it found defendant guilty of assault in the fourth degree constituting domestic violence.

On appeal, defendant assigns error to the trial court's ruling admitting the recording of the 9-1-1 call. Defendant argues that the court erred in admitting the recording because the state failed to lay an adequate foundation to establish the recording's authenticity under OEC 901. In response, the state argues that the certificate of authenticity was sufficient to satisfy OEC 901, and that, if it was not, the surrounding circumstances and the content of the recording itself were sufficient to authenticate the call.

Where a trial court has ruled that certain evidence does or does not have an adequate foundation, we review the foundational evidence for legal sufficiency. State v. Divito , 180 Or. App. 156, 164, 42 P.3d 918, rev. den. , 334 Or. 288, 49 P.3d 797 (2002). In other words, we review a trial court's OEC 901 ruling to determine whether there was sufficient evidence for the court to have submitted the issue of authenticity to the *252finder of fact. State v. Park , 140 Or. App. 507, 511,

Related

State v. Sassarini
452 P.3d 457 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2019)
State v. Noorzai
423 P.3d 817 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
423 P.3d 742, 292 Or. App. 248, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-noorzai-orctapp-2018.