Whether by allowing the witness’s two-way interactive video testimony over the defendant’s objection, the trial court violated his right of confrontation &, if so, whether the error was harmless; People v. Bruner; Const. 1963, art. 1, § 20; Crawford v. Washington; People v. Pesquera; Maryland v. Craig; Ohio v. Roberts; The reliability-balancing approach; Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc.; Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts

Holding that by allowing the witness’s two-way, interactive video testimony over the defendant’s objection, the trial court violated his right of confrontation, the court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded for further proceedings, including deciding whether that violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. He was convicted of one count of CSC I and acquitted of the other count. The court applied Craig “only to the specific facts it decided: a child victim may testify against the accused by means of one-way video (or a similar Craig-type process) when the trial court finds, consistently with statutory authorization and through a case-specific showing of necessity, that the child needs special protection.” The witness in this case was neither the victim nor a child; Crawford thus provides the applicable rule. “The Court of Appeals answered the wrong question when it held that ‘the trial court appropriately dispensed with the face-to-face requirement.’” The court held that Crawford “makes clear, for testimonial evidence, that requirement may be dispensed with only when the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a prior chance to cross-examine the witness.” The parties did not dispute that witness-C, the laboratory analyst for serological processing and further DNA testing evidence, was testimonial. And the court agreed. The court held that defendant “had a right to face-to-face cross-examination;” C was available, and “defendant did not have a prior chance to cross-examine him.” Defendant’s “state and federal constitutional rights to confrontation were violated by the admission of [C’s] two-way, interactive video testimony.”