## Facts

- Tommy Coronado was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, R.D., his great-niece.
- R.D. was three years old when her parents noticed unusual behavior and her father asked whether anyone had touched her genital area; she identified Coronado.
- About a week later, R.D. participated in a videotaped forensic interview at an advocacy center and again stated that Coronado touched her genital area; she also indicated certain family members witnessed the abuse.
- Before trial, the State sought to admit the videotaped interview under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.071, § 2, after having the trial court declare R.D. (then five years old) unavailable to testify.
- The trial court found R.D. unavailable and ordered a second videotaped interview in which defense counsel could submit written questions for a neutral interviewer to ask, with possible interviewer follow-ups.
- Over Sixth Amendment objections, the trial court admitted both videotaped interviews instead of live testimony and live cross-examination.
- The jury convicted Coronado of touching and penetrating the child’s genitals and assessed life imprisonment on both counts.
- The court of appeals treated the child’s forensic-interview statements as testimonial but affirmed, concluding the written-question procedure adequately provided cross-examination.

## Issues

1. Whether admitting a child complainant’s testimonial videotaped forensic interview, when the child is unavailable and the defendant’s “cross-examination” is limited to written questions asked by a neutral interviewer, satisfies the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.

## Decision

- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the court of appeals and remanded.
- The court held that, for testimonial statements, article 38.071, § 2’s procedure substituting a neutral-interviewer videotape with defense-submitted written questions for live cross-examination does not satisfy the Sixth Amendment.
- The court concluded the second videotaped interview did not provide the constitutionally required prior opportunity for cross-examination.

## Legal Principles

- Testimonial hearsay is inadmissible when the declarant is unavailable unless the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination consistent with the Confrontation Clause.
- Cross-examination contemplated by the Sixth Amendment is live and adversarial, including counsel’s ability to question contemporaneously, ask unplanned follow-ups based on answers, and control the manner and sequence of examination.
- Written interrogatories prepared in advance and posed by a neutral intermediary are not an adequate substitute for contemporaneous, counsel-directed cross-examination of testimonial statements.
- Child-witness protective measures may be permissible when they preserve live, adversarial cross-examination, but procedures that eliminate that feature exceed constitutional limits.

## Conclusion

Because the child’s forensic-interview statements were testimonial and the statutory videotape procedure replaced live, adversarial cross-examination with written questions filtered through a neutral interviewer, admitting the statements violated the Sixth Amendment, requiring reversal and remand.


Coronado v. State, 351 S.W.3d 315 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011)