Compare And Contrast Davis And Hammon

Justice Sotomayor states that the court used Davis and Hammon although these two were domestic violence cases to reflect on the threat to the victims and evaluate the ongoing emergency, if any. Justice Sotomayor states what the lower court did wrong in Davis:

[D]efine the extend of the emergency … failed to appreciate that whether an emergency exists and is ongoing is a highly context-dependent inquiry … did not appreciate that the duration and scope of an emergency may depend in part on the type of weapon employed … [and] whether the victim was in need of medical attention was in any way relevant to whether there was an ‘ongoing emergency. (Michigan v. Bryant)

She clarifies that both Davis and Hammon did not present a medical emergency like

Also, the police officers were not positive about if the threat was just limited to Mr. Covington because he did not make any comments about that during the interrogation. Justice Sotomayor also mentions that this is the first case Confrontation Clause case that involves a gun. Then, she refers to Hammon’s again to make the point of how the idea of having the victim in a separate room away from the perpetrator but in the same house cannot be applied to Bryant because of the firearm. She then gives this extreme example to reflect on the ongoing emergency. Justice Sotomayor states, “If an out-of-sight sniper pauses between shots, no one would say that the emergency ceases during the pause” (Michigan v. Bryant 12). She concludes that there was an ongoing emergency in Bryant’s case because the perpetrator was in possession of firearm, the motive and his location were unidentified, the crime happened not too far away from where the victim was found, and the crime happened a few minutes before the police officers found the victim. According to Justice Sotomayor, based on Mr. Covington’s condition and statements “[the court] cannot say that a person in [his] situation would have had a ‘primary purpose’ ‘to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution’” (Michigan v. Bryant 29). Also, based on the questions that the police officers asked allows the court to conclude that their primary purpose was to assess an ongoing emergency rather than getting evidence for future prosecution. The court also took into consideration where the interrogation took place to determine if it was formal or not. According to Justice Sotomayor, the court concluded that “Covington’s identification and description of the shooter and the location of the shooting were not testimonial hearsay” (Michigan v. Bryant 31). Therefore, Covington’s statements did not violate the Confrontation Clause, which