Danforth v. State

761 N.W.2d 493

Stephen DANFORTH, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent.

No. A04-1993.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

February 26, 2009.

Lawrence Hammerling, Chief State Appellate Public Defender, Benjamin J. Butler, Assistant State Public Defender, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Patrick C. Diamond, Assistant County Attorney, Minneapolis, MN, for respondent.

OPINION

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Justice.

Appellant Stephen Danforth was charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a six-year-old boy, J.S. The boy was found incompetent to testify at trial, but the district court admitted into evidence a videotaped interview of J.S. conducted at a child advocacy center. The jury found Danforth guilty. The facts of this case are set forth at length in a decision by the court of appeals. State v. Danforth, 573 N.W.2d 369, 372 (Minn.App. 1997), rev. denied (Minn. Feb. 19, 1998). A recitation of the procedural events following Danforth's conviction can be found in our previous opinion, Danforth v. State, 718 N.W.2d 451, 454-55 (Minn.2006). In Danforth, we held that we were required to follow the standard for retroactivity of new rules of constitutional criminal procedure set by the United States Supreme Court in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and that Teague prohibited the retroactive application of the rule in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), to Danforth's case. Danforth, 718 N.W.2d at 455, 460-61. The U.S. Supreme Court granted Danforth's writ of certiorari and reversed, holding that state courts, when reviewing state criminal convictions, are not bound by Teague and may choose the standard for deciding whether new rules of federal constitutional criminal procedure are retroactive. Danforth v. Minnesota, 552 U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1029, 1046, 169 L.Ed.2d 859 (2008). We affirm.

On August 23, 1995, in a videotaped interview at CornerHouse, a child advocacy center that often interviews children who are alleged victims of sexual abuse, J.S. indicated that he had been sexually abused by Danforth. Danforth was arrested and charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. At Danforth's trial, the district court declared J.S. incompetent to testify, and admitted the videotape, finding that the videotape bore sufficient indicia of reliability in accordance with Minn.Stat. § 595.02, subd. 3 (1994). The jury viewed the videotape. The jury also heard testimony from J.S.'s sister, A.S., who testified that she had seen Danforth perform sexual acts on J.S. The jury convicted Danforth of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Eight years after Danforth's conviction, the Supreme Court in Crawford ruled that defendants have a right under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause to cross-examine testimonial witnesses. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68-69, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Crawford replaced the reliability standard, first announced in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), that had allowed admission of the videotape in Danforth's case. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 67-68, 124 S.Ct. 1354; Danforth, 718 N.W.2d at 454.

I.

The issue presented in this case is what standard we should use to decide whether new rules of federal constitutional criminal procedure will be applied retroactively. Appellant, who contends that his rights under the Confrontation Clause were violated by the admission at his trial of the videotaped statement of J.S., seeks to change the existing Teague standard and, utilizing a new standard, to retroactively apply to his case the rule announced in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). We employ a de novo standard of review when reviewing questions of law. State v. Rodriguez, 754 N.W.2d 672, 678 (Minn. 2008). The issue of what standard we should use in deciding whether a new rule of federal constitutional criminal procedure should apply retroactively involves a question of law. Similarly, whether a defendant's Confrontation Clause rights have been violated also presents a question of law. State v. Krasky, 736 N.W.2d 636, 640 (Minn.2007). Consequently, we review the issues presented here under a de novo standard.

A.

Danforth argues we should announce a new standard for deciding whether to give retroactive effect to new federal constitutional rules of criminal procedure. He seeks either of two more relaxed standards, which, he contends, would enable him to challenge his conviction as based on an unconstitutional violation of his rights under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. We begin with a review of the history of and principles behind our retroactivity standards.

From 1977 to 2004, we decided the retroactivity of new federal constitutional rules of criminal procedure under a standard modeled on two United States Supreme Court decisions: Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 629, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965), and Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 297, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). Under the so-called Linkletter-Stovall test, we decided whether to give retroactive effect to a particular decision based on (1) the purpose of the decision, (2) reliance on the prior rule of law, and (3) the effect upon the administration of justice of granting retroactive effect. See State v. Hamm, 423 N.W.2d 379, 386 (Minn.1988) (adopting the retroactivity criteria set forth in Linkletter and Stovall), superseded on other grounds by Minn. Const. art. I, § 4; State v. Olsen, 258 N.W.2d 898, 907 n. 15 (Minn.1977) (citing Linkletter, 381 U.S. at 629, 85 S.Ct. 1731).

The Linkletter-Stovall test was maligned by scholars and some Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. In the four years after Linkletter was decided, the standard's application "produced strikingly divergent results" from the Supreme Court, depending on whether cases were subject to direct review, whether trials had commenced or not, whether tainted evidence had been introduced at trial, and other factors. Danforth, 128 S.Ct. at 1037 (citing Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 257, 89 S.Ct. 1030, 22 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969) (Harlan, J., dissenting)). Justice Harlan "reasonably questioned" whether Linkletter-Stovall's approach to retroactivity was producing decisions of a court of law or that of a super-legislature. Id. Commentators had "a veritable field day" with Linkletter-Stovall, with "much of the discussion [being] `more than mildly negative.'" Francis X. Beytagh, Ten Years of Non-Retroactivity: A Critique and a Proposal, 61 Va. L.Rev. 1557, 1558 (1975).

In 1989, the Supreme Court answered Justice Harlan's concerns by adopting a new approach to retroactivity for cases on collateral review.¹ The Court decided a new rule would not normally be retroactively applied to a defendant's case once the defendant's case had become final. Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 311, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). The Teague standard allowed retroactive effect of a new rule in cases that had become final only under two exceptions: (1) when the rule places certain specific conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making authority to proscribe, or (2) when the rule is a "watershed" rule of criminal procedure, and is a rule without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction would be seriously diminished. Id. at 311-12, 109 S.Ct. 1060. The Teague methodology later became the Court's majority approach to deciding retroactivity. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 313, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), overruled on other grounds by Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002).

We continued to follow Linkletter-Stovall until 2004. At that time, we stated that we were "compelled to follow the lead" of the United States Supreme Court when deciding the retroactivity of a new rule of federal constitutional criminal procedure, meaning we were obligated to follow the rulings in Teague and Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987). O'Meara v. State, 679 N.W.2d 334, 339 (Minn.2004). We held that in accordance with Griffith and Teague, "if a case is pending on direct review when a new rule of federal constitutional criminal procedure is announced, the defendant is entitled to benefit from that new rule. But if the defendant's conviction is already final at the time the new rule is announced, then the criminal defendant ordinarily may not avail himself of the new rule." O'Meara, 679 N.W.2d at 339-40 (footnotes omitted). We recognized the two exceptions to Teague's non-retroactivity standard: a new rule could be applied to convictions that have become final when (1) the rule "place[d] an entire category of primary conduct beyond the reach of the criminal law," or "prohibit[ed] imposition of a certain type of punishment for a class of defendants because of their status or offense"; or (2) the new rule was a "watershed" rule of criminal procedure that was "necessary to the fundamental fairness of the criminal proceeding." O'Meara, 679 N.W.2d. at 340 n. 3 quoting Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 241-42, 110 S.Ct. 2822, 111 L.Ed.2d 193 (1990).

A year later, we again stated our belief that "the retroactivity principles of Teague . . . control," holding that an appellant whose conviction had become final before the new rule was announced in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), could not invoke the new rule because it was not a watershed rule. State v. Houston, 702 N.W.2d 268, 270 (Minn.2005). Similarly, when Danforth sought the protection of the rule announced in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), regarding admissibility of certain out-of-court testimonial statements under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, we stated that we were required to apply Teague and held that Danforth was...