## Facts

- Michael D. Crawford stabbed Kenneth Lee at Lee’s apartment on August 5, 1999.
- Police arrested Crawford that evening and obtained two taped interviews from Crawford and his wife, Sylvia Crawford, who was present.
- In the first interviews, both described that they were at Lee’s home, Crawford left to buy alcohol, returned to find Lee making sexual advances toward Sylvia, and Crawford stabbed Lee twice.
- Several hours later, both gave a second set of interviews describing that an earlier sexual assault by Lee had occurred weeks before; on the night of the stabbing, the Crawfords went to Lee’s apartment after Lee was mentioned, spoke briefly, and Crawford stabbed Lee twice.
- The second accounts differed mainly on whether Lee had or reached for an object at the time of the stabbing.
- At trial, Crawford claimed self-defense and invoked the marital privilege to prevent Sylvia from testifying.
- The trial court admitted Sylvia’s taped police statement as hearsay consistent with then-governing confrontation doctrine, and the jury convicted Crawford of first-degree assault while armed with a deadly weapon.

## Issues

1. Whether invoking the marital privilege to bar a spouse’s live testimony waives the defendant’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause objection to the spouse’s out-of-court statement.
2. Whether Sylvia Crawford’s taped police statement was admissible under hearsay law and the Confrontation Clause because it bore sufficient indicia of reliability, including as an “interlocking confession” with the defendant’s statement.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
- The court held that invoking marital privilege does not waive Confrontation Clause rights.
- The court held that Sylvia’s taped statement was admissible because it had adequate indicia of reliability under Ohio v. Roberts, emphasized by its interlocking consistency with Crawford’s own taped statement.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant’s exercise of the marital privilege does not, by itself, constitute a waiver of the constitutional right to confront adverse witnesses.
- Under the then-controlling Roberts framework, an unavailable declarant’s hearsay may satisfy the Confrontation Clause if it bears adequate indicia of reliability.
- Consistency between a declarant’s statement and a defendant’s own statement (an “interlocking confession” theory) may be treated as evidence of reliability for confrontation purposes.
- Minor discrepancies within otherwise consistent accounts may not defeat a finding of reliability where the central narrative substantially overlaps.

## Conclusion

The court separated marital privilege from confrontation waiver, but upheld admission of a spouse’s taped police interview because it was considered reliable under the prevailing Roberts approach, particularly due to its overlap with the defendant’s own statement, and therefore affirmed the assault conviction.


State v. Crawford, 147 Wash. 2d 424, 54 P.3d 656 (Wash. 2002)