Michigan v. Bryant (09-150)

argument 09-150

Michigan v. Bryant

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 1m 5 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 5 days ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the case and why is it being heard before the Supreme Court?

John G. Roberts 0:02

We'll hear argument next in case zero nine one fifty, Michigan versus Bryant. Ms. Palmer.

Diane L. Palmer 0:08

Mr Chief Justice, and may it please the court. Formality is indeed essential to testimonial utterance. So said this court in Davis, which dealt with two related situations on the scene questioning by police officers and questions by 911 operators. This court noted that such questioning may often lack the formality essential to testimonial utterance, as officers called to investigate need to know whom they are dealing with in order to assess a situation. the threat to themselves and the potential danger to possible victims. The question here is whether those same assessing questions, what happened, who did it, where did it happen Asked by police officers who, upon receiving a radio report of a man shot,

Diane L. Palmer 0:52

Found a wounded man lying on the ground next to a car at a gas station, bleeding visibly in pain. And having trouble talking. were made in a formal context sufficiently similar to a magisterial examination so that the answers by the dying doctor d by the dying victim are testimonial.

John G. Roberts 1:08

Well it can't all be the c formality of the context. I mean if the police came in and said, Well has this person is Rick, I guess, sold you drugs before What was the content what was the quantity and all those sorts of questions? The the answers to that would be testimonial despite the same lack of formality.

Diane L. Palmer 1:26

Which is where the ongoing emergency test from Davis comes into play. The questions need to be

How does the Court’s Davis test determine whether a statement is testimonial?

Diane L. Palmer 1:31

Um the m primary purpose needs to be to meet an ongoing emergency. So assessing the risk, assessing um the danger to others and any questions beyond that could arguably be testimonial while those are the

Samuel A. Alito 1:43

forget about formality in other words. Formality or no formality has nothing to do with it.

Diane L. Palmer 1:48

Well under Davis you said that was how you tested formality. If the Davis test is a a gauge of formality, if there are questions that respond to ongoing emergency, then this court has said that that is an indicator that they lacks the formality. How do we

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2:00

how do we tell that? Because it seems to me Here. If you want to know what happened You'd ask the very same questions. You're saying the questions are relevant Also to uh securing the situation. But what what Different questions would you ask if you wanted to find out? what happened? What was the past what were the past events? I mean I'm trying to understand how you take these questions and say we can put a label on them here that says, Oh, this is uh uh to control an emergency situation versus we want to know what happened historically.

Diane L. Palmer 2:50

Well I think that what you have to do is look at the I mean obviously things can have dual purposes and often will. You need to look at the primary purpose here. And you said in Davis it's an objective what would an objective person before. But

Elena Kagan 3:01

whose primary purpose is is it? I mean the victim here knew that the incident hadn't happened there. There was nothing he had to share with the police because they could see he was bleeding from his stomach and he had been shot. Um He apparently didn't fear any threat or doesn't seem to be any circumstances suggesting an immediate threat to him. He had driven away. Rick didn't know where he had gone. Um so what's the ongoing emergency to the victim.

Diane L. Palmer 3:34

Well I think here um which is why in Davis you said it's the primary purpose of the questioning is what you look at in Davis and we're not asking you to overrule that.

Elena Kagan 3:42

Wait a minute. What what is the the primary isn't doesn't isn't there a footnote? That says the primary purpose. Of the declarant is what at s at issue?

Samuel A. Alito 3:53

That is that is what it says. It's it's the it's the in it's the purpose of the declarant, not of the question.

Diane L. Palmer 4:00

But the formality indicators that the court delineated gave it um did not include whether the answers to the questions were for the purpose of establishing past events, but whether the primary purpose of the questions were for those ends. And the the question is one of context, not content, as you s notice in as you uh said in critical. Well

Elena Kagan 4:20

Davis the issue is why was the declarant talking?