Michigan v. Bryant

delivered the opinion of the Court.

At respondent Richard Bryant’s trial, the court admitted statements that the victim, Anthony Covington, made to police officers who discovered him mortally wounded in a gas station parking lot. A jury convicted Bryant of, inter alia, second-degree murder. 483 Mich. 132, 137, 768 N. W. 2d 65, 67-68 (2009). On appeal, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, as explained in our decisions in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36 (2004), and Davis v. Washington, 547 U. S. 813 (2006), rendered Covington’s statements inadmissible testimonial hearsay, and the court reversed Bryant’s conviction. 483 Mich., at 157, 768 N. W. 2d, at 79. We granted the *349State’s petition for a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Confrontation Clause barred the admission at trial of Covington’s statements to the police. We hold that the circumstances of the interaction between Covington and the police objectively indicate that the “primary purpose of the interrogation” was “to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency.” Davis, 547 U. S., at 822. Therefore, Covington’s identification and description of the shooter and the location of the shooting were not testimonial statements, and their admission at Bryant’s trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause. We vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan and remand.

I

Around 3:25 a.m. on April 29, 2001, Detroit, Michigan, police officers responded to a radio dispatch indicating that a man had been shot. At the scene, they found the victim, Anthony Covington, lying on the ground next to his car in a gas station parking lot. Covington had a gunshot wound to his abdomen, appeared to be in great pain, and spoke with difficulty.

The police asked him “what had happened, who had shot him, and where the shooting had occurred.” 483 Mich., at 143, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71. Covington stated that “Rick” shot him at around 3 a.m. Id., at 136, and n. 1, 768 N. W. 2d, at 67, and n. 1. He also indicated that he had a conversation with Bryant, whom he recognized based on his voice, through the back door of Bryant’s house. Covington explained that when he turned to leave, he was shot through the door and then drove to the gas station, where police found him.

Covington’s conversation with the police ended within 5 to 10 minutes when emergency medical services arrived. Cov-ington was transported to a hospital and died within hours. The police left the gas station after speaking with Coving-ton, called for backup, and traveled to Bryant’s house. They *350did not find Bryant there but did find blood and a bullet on the back porch and an apparent bullet hole in the back door. Police also found Covington’s wallet and identification outside the house.

At trial, which occurred prior to our decisions in Crawford, 541 U. S. 36, and Davis, 547 U. S. 813, the police officers who spoke with Covington at the gas station testified about what Covington had told them. The jury returned a guilty verdict on charges of second-degree murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Bryant appealed, and the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction. No. 247039, 2004 WL 1882661 (Aug. 24, 2004) (per curiam). Bryant then appealed to the Supreme Court of Michigan, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting Covington’s statements to the police. The Supreme Court of Michigan eventually remanded the case to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of our 2006 decision in Davis. 477 Mich. 902, 722 N. W. 2d 797 (2006). On remand, the Court of Appeals again affirmed, holding that Covington’s statements were properly admitted because they were not testimonial. No. 247039, 2007 WL 675471 (Mar. 6, 2007) (per curiam). Bryant again appealed to the Supreme Court of Michigan, which reversed his conviction. 483 Mich. 132, 768 N. W. 2d 65.

Before the Supreme Court of Michigan, Bryant argued that Covington’s statements to the police were testimonial under Crawford and Davis and were therefore inadmissible. The State, on the other hand, argued that the statements were admissible as “excited utterances” under the Michigan Rules of Evidence. 483 Mich., at 142, and n. 6, 768 N. W. 2d, at 70, and n. 6. There was no dispute that Covington was unavailable at trial and Bryant had no prior opportunity to cross-examine him. The court therefore assessed whether Covington’s statements to the police identifying and describ*351ing the shooter and the time and location of the shooting were testimonial hearsay for purposes of the Confrontation Clause. The court concluded that the circumstances “clearly indicate that the ‘primary purpose’ of the questioning was to establish the facts of an event that had already occurred; the ‘primary purpose’ was not to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency.” Id., at 143, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71. The court explained that, in its view, Covington was describing past events and as such, his “primary purpose in making these statements to the police .. . was ... to tell the police who had committed the crime against him, where the crime had been committed, and where the police could find the criminal.” Id., at 144, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71. Noting that the officers’ actions did not suggest that they perceived an ongoing emergency at the gas station, the court held that there was in fact no ongoing emergency. Id., at 145-147, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71-73. The court distinguished the facts of this case from those in Davis, where we held a declarant’s statements in a 911 call to be nontestimonial. It instead analogized this case to Hammon v. Indiana, which we decided jointly with Davis and in which we found testimonial a declarant’s statements to police just after an assault. See 547 U. S., at 829-832. Based on this analysis, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that the admission of Covington’s statements constituted prejudicial plain error warranting reversal and ordered a new trial. 483 Mich., at 151-153, 768 N. W. 2d, at 75-76. The court did not address whether, absent a Confrontation Clause bar, the statements’ admission would have been otherwise consistent with Michigan’s hearsay rules or due process.1

*352The majority’s opinion provoked two dissents, both of which would have held Covington’s statements admissible because they were made in circumstances indicating that their “primary purpose” was to assist police in addressing an ongoing emergency. Id., at 157, 768 N. W. 2d, at 79 (opinion of Weaver, J.); id., at 157-159, 768 N. W. 2d, at 79 (opinion of Corrigan, J.). Justice Corrigan’s dissent explained that the time and space between “the onset of an emergency and statements about that emergency clearly must be considered in context.” Id., at 161, 768 N. W. 2d, at 80. Justice Corri-gan concluded that the objective circumstances of Coving-ton’s interaction with police rendered this case more similar to the nontestimonial statements in Davis than to the testimonial statements in Crawford. 483 Mich., at 164, 768 N. W. 2d, at 82.

We granted certiorari to determine whether the Confrontation Clause barred admission of Covington’s statements. 559 U. S. 970 (2010).

II

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The Fourteenth Amendment renders the Clause binding on the States. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 403 (1965). In *353Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56, 66 (1980), we explained that the confrontation right does not bar admission of statements of an unavailable witness if the statements “bea[r] adequate ‘indicia of reliability.’ ” We held that reliability can be established if “the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception,” or if it does not fall within such an exception, then if it bears “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” Ibid.

Nearly a quarter century later, we decided Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36. Petitioner Michael Crawford was prosecuted for stabbing a man who had allegedly attempted to rape his wife, Sylvia. Sylvia witnessed the stabbing, and later that night, after she and her husband were both arrested, police interrogated her about the incident. At trial, Sylvia Crawford claimed spousal privilege and did not testify, but the State introduced a tape recording of Sylvia’s statement to the police in an effort to prove that the stabbing was not in self-defense, as Michael Crawford claimed. The Washington Supreme Court affirmed Crawford’s conviction because it found Sylvia’s statement to be reliable, as required under Ohio v. Roberts. We reversed, overruling Ohio v. Roberts. 541 U. S., at 60-68; see also Davis, 547 U. S., at 825, n. 4.

Crawford examined the common-law history of the confrontation right and explained that “the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused.” 541 U. S., at 50. We noted that in England, pretrial examinations of suspects and witnesses by government officials “were sometimes read in court in lieu of live testimony.” Id., at 43. In light of this history, we emphasized the word “witnesses” in the Sixth Amendment, defining it as “those who ‘bear testimony.’” Id., at 51 (quoting 2 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)). We defined “testimony” as “‘[a] solemn declaration or affirma*354tion made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.’” 541 U.S., at 51 (quoting Webster). We noted that “[a]n accuser who makes a formal statement to government officers bears testimony in a sense that a person who makes a casual remark to an acquaintance does not.” Ibid. We therefore limited the Confrontation Clause’s reach to testimonial statements and held that in order for testimonial evidence to be admissible, the Sixth Amendment “demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” Id., at 68. Although “leaving] for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of ‘testimonial,’ ” Crawford noted that “at a minimum” it includes “prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and . . . police interrogations.” Ibid. Under this reasoning, we held that Sylvia Crawford’s statements in the course of police questioning were testimonial and that their admission when Michael Crawford “had no opportunity to cross-examine her” due to spousal privilege was “sufficient to make out a violation of the Sixth Amendment.” Ibid.

In 2006, the Court in Davis v. Washington and Hammon v. Indiana, 547 U. S. 813, took a further step to “determine more precisely which police interrogations produce testimony” and therefore implicate a Confrontation Clause bar. Id., at 822. We explained that when Crawford said that

“ ‘interrogations by law enforcement officers fall squarely within [the] class’ of testimonial hearsay, we had immediately in mind (for that was the case before us) interrogations solely directed at establishing the facts of a past crime, in order to identify (or provide evidence to convict) the perpetrator. The product of such interrogation, whether reduced to a writing signed by the declarant or embedded in the memory (and perhaps notes) of the interrogating officer, is testimonial.” Davis, 547 U. S., at 826.

*355We thus made clear in Davis that not all those questioned by the police are witnesses and not all “interrogations by law enforcement officers,” Crawford, 541 U. S., at 53, are subject to the Confrontation Clause.2

Davis and Hammon were both domestic violence cases. In Davis, Michelle McCottry made the statements at issue to a 911 operator during a domestic disturbance with Adrian Davis, her former boyfriend. McCottry told the operator, “'He’s here jumpin’ on me again,’” and, “'He’s usin’ his fists.’ ” 547 U. S., at 817. The operator then asked McCot-try for Davis’ first and last names and middle initial, and at that point in the conversation McCottry reported that Davis had fled in a car. Id., at 818. McCottry did not appear at Davis’ trial, and the State introduced the recording of her conversation with the 911 operator. Id., at 819.

In Hammon, decided along with Davis, police responded to a domestic disturbance call at the home of Amy and Hershel Hammon, where they found Amy alone on the front porch. Ibid. She appeared “'somewhat frightened,’” but told them “ ‘nothing was the matter.’” Ibid. (quoting Hammon v. State, 829 N. E. 2d 444, 446-447 (Ind. 2005)). She gave the police permission to enter the house, where they saw a gas heating unit with the glass front shattered on the floor. One officer remained in the kitchen with Hershel, while another officer talked to Amy in the living room about what had happened. Hershel tried several times to participate in Amy’s conversation with the police and became angry when the police required him to stay separated from Amy. 547 U. S., at 819-820. The police asked Amy to fill out and sign a battery affidavit. She wrote: “ ‘Broke our Furnace & *356shoved me down on the floor into the broken glass. Hit me in the chest and threw me down. Broke our lamps & phone. Tore up my van where I couldn’t leave the house. Attacked my daughter.’” Id., at 820. Amy did not appear at Hershel’s trial, so the police officers who spoke with her testified as to her statements and authenticated the affidavit. Ibid. The trial court admitted the affidavit as a present sense impression and admitted the oral statements as excited utterances under state hearsay rules. Ibid. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed Hammon’s conviction, holding that Amy's oral statements were not testimonial and that the admission of the affidavit, although erroneous because the affidavit was testimonial, was harmless. Hammon v. State, 829 N. E. 2d, at 458-459.

To address the facts of both cases, we expanded upon the meaning of “testimonial” that we first employed in Crawford and discussed the concept of an ongoing emergency. We explained:

“Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Davis, 547 U. S., at 822.

Examining the Davis and Hammon statements in light of those definitions, we held that the statements at issue in Davis were nontestimonial and the statements in Hammon were testimonial. We distinguished the statements in Davis from the testimonial statements in Crawford on several grounds, including that the victim in Davis was “speaking about events as they were actually happening, rather *357than ‘describing] past events,” that there was an ongoing emergency, that the “elicited statements were necessary to be able to resolve the present emergency,” and that the statements were not formal. 547 U. S., at 827. In Hammon, ón the other hand, we held that, “[i]t is entirely clear from the circumstances that the interrogation was part of an investigation into possibly criminal past conduct.” Id., at 829. There was “no emergency in progress.” Ibid. The officer questioning Amy “was not seeking to determine . . . ‘what is happening/ but rather ‘what happened.’” Id., at 830. It was “formal enough” that the police interrogated Amy in a room separate from her husband where, “some time after the events described were over,” she “deliberately recounted, in response to police questioning, how potentially criminal past events began and progressed.” Ibid. Because her statements “were neither a cry for help nor the provision of information enabling officers immediately to end a threatening situation,” id., at 832, we held that they were testimonial.

Davis did not “attemp[t] to produce an exhaustive classification of all conceivable statements — or even all conceivable statements in response to police interrogation — as either testimonial or nontestimonial.” Id., at 822.3 The basic pur*358pose of the Confrontation Clause was to “targe[t]” the sort of “abuses” exemplified at the notorious treason trial of Sir Walter Raleigh. Crawford, 541 U. S., at 51. Thus, the most important instances in which the Clause restricts the introduction of out-of-court statements are those in which state actors are involved in a formal, out-of-court interrogation of a witness to obtain evidence for trial.4 See id., at 43-44. Even where such an interrogation is conducted with all good faith, introduction of the resulting statements at trial can be unfair to the accused if they are untested by cross-examination. Whether formal or informal, out-of-court statements can evade the basic objective of the Confrontation Clause, which is to prevent the accused from being deprived of the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant about statements taken for use at trial. When, as in Davis, the primary purpose of an interrogation is to respond to an “ongoing emergency,” its purpose is not to create a record for trial and thus is not within the scope of the Clause. But there may be other circumstances, aside from ongoing emergencies, when a statement is not procured with a primary purpose of creating an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony. In making the primary purpose determination, standard rules of hearsay, designed to identify some state*359ments as reliable, will be relevant. Where no such primary purpose exists, the admissibility of a statement is the concern of state and federal rules of evidence, not the Confrontation Clause.5

Deciding this case also requires further explanation of the “ongoing emergency” circumstance addressed in Davis. Because Davis and Hammon arose in the domestic violence context, that was the situation “we had immediately in mind (for that was the case before us).” 547 U. S., at 826. We now face a new context: a nondomestic dispute, involving a victim found in a public location, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound, and a perpetrator whose location was unknown at the time the police located the victim. Thus, we confront for the first time circumstances in which the “ongoing emergency” discussed in Davis extends beyond an initial victim to a potential threat to the responding police and the public at large. This new context requires us to provide additional clarification with regard to what Davis meant by “the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency.” Id., at 822.

III

To determine whether the “primary purpose” of an interrogation is “to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency,” ibid., which would render the resulting statements nontestimonial, we objectively evaluate the circumstances in which the encounter occurs and the statements and actions of the parties.

*360A

The Michigan Supreme Court correctly understood that this inquiry is objective.6 483 Mich., at 142, 768 N. W. 2d, at 70. Davis uses the word “objective” or “objectively” no fewer than eight times in describing the relevant inquiry. See 547 U. S., at 822, 826-828, 830-831, and n. 5; see, e. g., id., at 826 (“The question before us in Davis, then, is whether, objectively considered, the interrogation that took place in the course of the 911 call produced testimonial statements”). “Objectively” also appears in the definitions of both testimonial and nontestimonial statements that Davis established. Id., at 822.

An objective analysis of the circumstances of an encounter and the statements and actions of the parties to it provides the most accurate assessment of the “primary purpose of the interrogation.” The circumstances in which an encounter occurs — e. g., at or near the scene of the crime versus at a police station, during an ongoing emergency or afterwards— are clearly matters of objective fact. The statements and actions of the parties must also be objectively evaluated. That is, the relevant inquiry is not the subjective or actual purpose of the individuals involved in a particular encounter, but rather the purpose that reasonable participants would have had, as ascertained from the individuals’ statements and actions and the circumstances in which the encounter occurred.7

*361B

As our recent Confrontation Clause cases have explained, the existence of an “ongoing emergency” at the time of an encounter between an individual and the police is among the most important circumstances informing the “primary purpose” of an interrogation. See id., at 828-830; Crawford, 541 U. S., at 65. The existence of an ongoing emergency is relevant to determining the primary purpose of the interrogation because an emergency focuses the participants on something other than “proving] past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.”8 Davis, 547 U. S., at 822. Rather, it focuses them on “end[ing] a threatening situation.” Id., at 832. Implicit in Davis is the idea that because the prospect of fabrication in statements given for the primary purpose of resolving that emergency is presumably significantly diminished, the Confrontation Clause does not require such statements to be subject to the crucible of cross-examination.

This logic is not unlike that justifying the excited utterance exception in hearsay law. Statements “relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition,” Fed. Rule Evid. 803(2); see also Mich. Rule Evid. 803(2) (2010), are considered reliable because the declarant, in the excitement, presumably cannot form a falsehood. See Idaho *362v. Wright, 497 U. S. 805, 820 (1990) (“The basis for the 'excited utterance’ exception ... is that such statements are given under circumstances that eliminate the possibility of fabrication, coaching, or confabulation ... ”); 5 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 803.04[1] (J. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed. 2010) (same); Advisory Committee’s Notes on Fed. Rule Evid. 803(2), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 371 (same). An ongoing emergency has a similar effect of focusing an individual’s attention on responding to the emergency.9

Following our precedents, the court below correctly began its analysis with the circumstances in which Covington interacted with the police. 483 Mich., at 143, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71. But in doing so, the court construed Davis to have decided more than it did and thus employed an unduly narrow understanding of “ongoing '‘emergency” that Davis does not require.

*363First, the Michigan Supreme Court repeatedly and incorrectly asserted that Davis “defined” “‘ongoing emergency.’” 483 Mich., at 147, 768 N. W. 2d, at 73; see also id., at 144, 768 N. W. 2d, at 71-72. In fact, Davis did not even define the extent óf the emergency in that case. The Michigan Supreme Court erroneously read Davis as deciding that “the statements made after the defendant stopped assaulting the victim and left the premises did not occur during an ‘ongoing emergency.’ ” 483 Mich., at 150, n. 15, 768 N. W. 2d, at 75, n. 15. We explicitly explained in Davis, however, that we were asked to review only the testimonial nature of Michelle MeCottry’s initial statements during the 911 call; we therefore merely assumed the correctness of the Washington Supreme Court’s holding that admission of her other statements was harmless, without deciding, whether those subsequent statements were also made for the primary purpose of resolving an ongoing emergency. 547 U. S., at 829.

Second, by assuming that Davis defined the outer bounds of “ongoing emergency,” the Michigan Supreme Court failed to appreciate that whether an emergency exists and is ongoing is a highly context-dependent inquiry. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20. Davis and Hammon involved domestic violence, a known and identified perpetrator, and, in Hammon, a neutralized threat. Because Davis and Hammon were domestic violence cases, we focused only on the threat to the victims and assessed the ongoing emergency from the perspective of whether there was a continuing threat to them. 547 U. S., at 827, 829-830.

Domestic violence cases like Davis and Hammon often have a narrower zone of potential victims than cases involving threats to public safety. An assessment of whether an emergency that threatens the police and public is ongoing cannot narrowly focus on whether the threat solely to the first victim has been neutralized because the threat to the first responders and public may continue. See 483 Mich., at *364164, 768 N. W. 2d, at 82 (Corrigan, J., dissenting) (examining the threat to the victim, police, and the public); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19-20 (“An emergency-posed by an unknown shooter who remains at large does not automatically abate just because the police can provide security to his first victim”).

The Michigan Supreme Court also did not appreciate that the duration and scope of an emergency may depend in part on the type of weapon employed. The court relied on Davis and Hammon, in which the assailants used their fists, as controlling the scope of the emergency here, which involved the use of a gun. The problem with that reasoning is clear when considered in light of the assault on Amy Hammon. Hershel Hammon was armed only with his fists when he attacked his wife, so removing Amy to a separate room was sufficient to end the emergency. 547 U. S., at 830-832. If Hershel had been reported to be armed with a gun, however, separation by a single household wall might not have been sufficient to end the emergency. Id., at 819.

The Michigan Supreme Court’s failure to focus on the context-dependent nature of our Davis decision also led it to conclude that the medical condition of a declarant is irrelevant.