Court overturns conviction, citing confrontation clause

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A man who was convicted of third-degree murder has had his conviction reversed and will receive a new trial. Citing a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision issued after the man’s case was tried at the district court level, the Minnesota Court of Appeals concluded that admission of a toxicology report — without the testimony of the laboratory analyst who actually did the toxicology testing — was not harmless error.

According to facts presented in the court’s opinion, T.G. was found unresponsive in his home in February 2021. Despite the administration of Narcan and other life-saving measures, T.G. died. A sample of T.G.’s blood was drawn. Toxicology results showed that the blood tested positive for “4-ANPP,” a component which is related to the creation or degradation of fentanyl, the breakdown component of heroin, alprazolam, and other substances. “Mixed drug toxicity” was determined to be the cause of death.

The sheriff also seized T.G.’s phone, finding messages between T.G. and Max Leo Miller. The two agreed to swap counterfeit Xanax for a counterfeit opioid and heroin. Later, T.G. sent Miller a picture of white powder on a table, presumably asking whether he should consume the amount shown or more. Miller advised him to be careful, to take half, and to wait a bit to see the effects. In a follow-up message about a half hour later, Miller asked T.G. how he was feeling, but he never received a response.

Miller was charged with third-degree murder under Minn. Stat. § 609.195(b) for proximately causing the death of T.G. after bartering a controlled substance.

K.G., the state’s toxicologist witness, was unavailable for the trial. J.S., who issued a supplemental toxicology report, served in K.G.’s place. Pretrial, defense counsel did not object. But defense counsel objected to J.S.’s testimony at trial, claiming that it would violate Miller’s confrontation rights as Miller had the right to confront witnesses “who actually performed the test.” Ultimately, this objection was overruled by the district court.

J.S. asserted that she did her own review of the results, and alleged that her findings and conclusions were “exactly the same” as K.G.’s. She relayed the toxicology results, testifying that T.G. tested positive for caffeine, marijuana, Narcan, Xanax, morphine, and fentanyl.

Miller was found guilty of third-degree murder. He was sentenced to 74 months in prison. He argued that admitting the forensic toxicology results violated his confrontation rights because the person who performed the toxicology testing did not testify.

After Miller was convicted, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Smith v. Arizona. In that case, the lower court had permitted a government witness to testify about a lab test that ultimately supported the defendant’s conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, found that the Sixth Amendment‘s confrontation clause is implicated if an expert conveys an absent lab analyst’s statements and relies on the non-testifying expert’s statements to reach their conclusions.

Both parties in Miller’s case agreed that admission of the toxicology report violated his confrontation right. The court agreed, finding that the toxicologist report was a testimonial statement offered for its truth. While J.S. did an independent review of the test results, and signed the toxicology report, the court noted that she did not conduct or observe the testing that was performed.

The parties then presented arguments about whether the confrontation right violation was a harmless error.

Miller argued that this violation of his confrontation rights was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. “The state has argued that the toxicology report had little persuasive value, and that is meritless,” said Rebecca Ireland, assistant public defender, at oral arguments. “There could be no mistake that the toxicology was critical probative evidence of what caused the victim’s death, and, more importantly, whether it was Mr. Miller’s drugs proximately causing the death.”

However, the state argued that the violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, alleging that the cause of death was not contested at trial and that the contested issue centered on who provided the lethal dose of drugs to T.G. “The issue in this case is how did the drugs that killed the victim in this case get into his system,” Peter Magnuson, assistant attorney general, stated. “The challenged evidence in this case — the analyst’s report that showed the presence of several drugs in the victim’s system during the autopsy confirmed what everyone knew, what everyone who tried the case knew, that he died of mixed-drug toxicity. That was true even before the report had been prepared. The only issue at trial was who supplied those drugs.”

However, the court rejected this argument. “[T]his argument ignores the state’s burden to prove that a criminal defendant commits third-degree murder by a showing that (1) the defendant, (2) without intent to cause death, (3) proximately caused the death of another by, directly or indirectly, (4) unlawfully selling, giving away, bartering, delivering, exchanging, distributing, or administering, and (5) a controlled substance. See Minn. Stat. § 609.195(b),” wrote Judge Francis Connolly. “The element of who caused the death of T.G. is necessarily intertwined with the cause of death.”