The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Reynaldo Santos Dungo, Defendant and Appellant — Corrigan, J., Dissenting

Summary

Justice Corrigan, dissenting, would conclude that the anatomical observations in the autopsy report were testimonial because the signed official report was sufficiently formal and was prepared primarily to establish facts for possible use at a criminal trial. She would further conclude that admitting those observations through a substitute pathologist violated the defendant's confrontation rights and was prejudicial because the testimony supplied the principal evidentiary basis for the prosecution's theory that the killing was intentional rather than manslaughter. Justices Werdegar and Chin separately concurred in the majority's contrary conclusion, reasoning that the observations were not testimonial under different applications of formality and primary-purpose principles.