Taylor v. State

ARTHUR, J. This appeal concerns whether a deaf criminal defendant has the constitutional right to confront the interpreter who interpreted his statements during a police interrogation, when the State offers those interpretations as evidence against him in a criminal prosecution. Clarence Cepheus Taylor III, who is deaf, was arrested on the allegation that he had sexually abused minors. With the ³²³ aid of sign-language interpreters, detectives interrogated him for almost five hours. Over Taylor’s objection at trial, the court admitted a recording that included audio of an interpreter’s English-language interpretations of Taylor’s sign-language statements.

A jury found Taylor guilty of abusing two of the seven complaining witnesses. Foremost among the issues raised in this appeal, Taylor contends that under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 , 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the admission of the interpreter’s statements violated his constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. His contention is correct, and the judgments must be reversed. Factual and Procedural Background A. Taylor’s Supervisory Role at the Maryland School for the Deaf Taylor was born without the ability to hear.

He communicates primarily through American Sign Language (ASL). He can read and write in English, but he does not speak English or understand spoken English. In 2001, Taylor began working as a Student Life Counselor at the Columbia campus of the Maryland School for the Deaf. The Columbia campus, which serves students from pre-kinder-garten through eighth grade, provides a residential dormitory to accommodate students who live far away from the facility.

Taylor typically supervised groups of five or six male students in the afternoons and evenings. He later took on additional responsibilities as an after-school coordinator and basketball coach for both boys and girls. Taylor’s employment came to an end in the fall of 2012. In November of that year, the School received a report from four female students, De., M., P., and S., who claimed that Taylor had touched them inappropriately at the Columbia campus between 2008 and 2011.

The School placed Taylor on forced leave and reported the accusations to the Howard County police. ³²⁴ B. Criminal Investigation by Howard County Police Detective Penelope Camp served as lead investigator. Based on the results of her interviews of three students, she arrested Taylor and brought him to the police station for questioning on December 6, 2012. The nearly five-hour interrogation was recorded by video cameras and microphones. Because Detective Camp is unable to use or understand sign language, she arranged for a team of two interpreters to facilitate the questioning: Mr. Joe L. Smith, an ASL interpreter who could hear the detective’s questions; and Ms. Charm Smith, a Certified Deaf Interpreter (CDI) who could not hear the questions.

The detective asked questions in English, which the interpreters conveyed to Taylor through sign language; Taylor responded in sign language; the two interpreters converted his responses into English; and then Mr. Smith provided his spoken English interpretations of what Taylor had said in sign language. This collaborative interpretation process is known as relay interpretation or intermediary interpretation. State v. Wright, 768 N.W.2d 512 , 518 n. 2 (S.D.2009) (citing Linton v. State, 275 S.W.3d 493, 510 (Tex.Crim.App.2009) (Johnson, J., concurring)); see also Vasquez v. Kirkland, 572 F.3d 1029, 1032-33 (9th Cir.2009). 1 Through the interpreters, Detective Camp informed Taylor that he had “the right to remain silent,” that “anything [he] sa[id] may be used against [him],” and that he had the right to have an attorney present. Taylor briefly inquired about the meaning of “the right of getting a counsel.” Taylor then read and signed a written Miranda waiver form, indicating that he understood and voluntarily waived those rights. ³²⁵ Detective Camp told Taylor that his arrest was related to his conduct in his former role as a dorm counselor at the Maryland School for the Deaf.

The detective stated that multiple students had accused Taylor of touching their breasts or buttocks on numerous occasions, of kissing them, and of exchanging intimate text messages with them. Before the detective had provided the names of the accusers, Taylor brought up students named Da., S., and M., two of whom were among the initial complainants. Later, the detective asked specific questions about De. and P. Through the interpreter, Taylor at first denied making any inappropriate physical contact with students. He stated that he may have made accidental contact with someone in the school hallways, which he described as crowded and narrow at certain points.

He also stated that he would sometimes greet students with a handshake combined with a hug and that it was possible that his hand could have brushed against a person’s chest. He admitted that he had exchanged text messages with a number of students and that some female students had sent him revealing photographs. According to the interpreter’s account of Taylor’s statements, Taylor also stated that on specific instances he had accidentally touched particular girls. For example, according to the interpreter, Taylor admitted that he actually had touched Da. on the buttocks, but that he had done so by accident and had immediately apologized to her.

In another instance, the interpreter reported that Taylor gave this response to questions about touching De.’s breast: “Right, I mean, maybe it was the brushing like everything else but it wasn’t an intentional touch or anything. It was accidental. It wasn’t, maybe it wasn’t a complete hug.” At trial and on appeal, Taylor has contested the accuracy of the interpreter’s assertion that he admitted to specific incidents of inappropriate touching: he contends that he never admitted to having actually touched any of the young women’s breasts or buttocks, but merely to have stated that if he had done so, it would have been an accident, for which he would have apologized. ³²⁶ At the detective’s request, Taylor handwrote five short letters of apology addressed to Da., De., M., P., and S. Each letter expressed remorse and asked for forgiveness without describing any of Taylor’s actual conduct. For instance, in his letter to Da., Taylor wrote: “I said really am sorry about you.

I know that you dislike talk to me. I said so sorry about it situation. I wonder you can forgive me no matter what! ... I want to say to you ‘Sorry’!” When he finished writing, Taylor, through the interpreters, asked: “I wanted to know is the lawyer going to be coming to meet with me or can I ask for a lawyer now?” At that point, Detective Camp ended the questioning.

C. Pre-Trial Proceedings On January 16, 2013, the State filed seven indictments against Taylor. Each indictment corresponded to one of seven complainants: Da., De., K., M., P., S., and T. 2 The State charged Taylor with one count of sexual abuse of a minor for each of the minors. See Md.Code (2001, 2012 Repl.Vol.), Criminal Law Art., § 3-602(b)(1) (“A ... person who has permanent or temporary care or custody or responsibility for the supervision of a minor may not cause sexual abuse to the minor”); id. § 3-602(a)(4)(i) (“‘Sexual abuse’ means an act that involves sexual molestation or exploitation of a minor, whether physical injuries are sustained or not”). The State also charged Taylor with four counts of solicitation of child pornography.

Id. § 11-207(a). When Taylor’s defense counsel first entered his appearance, he filed a generic “Omnibus Pre-Trial Defense Motion” that included a comprehensive list of unspecific and unsupported requests for relief. The State arranged for the detectives and the two sign-language interpreters from the interrogation to testify at the motions hearing. After the hearing was postponed for cause, however, Taylor’s attorney failed to appear ³²⁷ on the rescheduled hearing date.

An attorney with no knowledge of the case appeared for the sole purpose of requesting a postponement. After the court declined to postpone the hearing, the attorney withdrew all of Taylor’s pre-trial motions. The court then denied a written motion for another hearing on the issue of whether Taylor’s statements to police should be suppressed. Taylor later filed a motion to sever, which the court also denied after a hearing.

D. The State’s Case Against Taylor A jury trial on all charges against Taylor commenced on October 28, 2013, and continued for nearly three weeks. Because the defendant and many of the witnesses are deaf, much of the testimony was communicated through court-appointed interpreters. 3 The female students themselves were the primary witnesses against Taylor. Each of the seven students testified about specific instances of Taylor’s inappropriate touching while they were under his supervision. According to many of the State’s witnesses, Taylor used handshakes and hugs that are similar to other greetings commonly used at the Maryland School for the Deaf.

While none of the witnesses disputed that touching plays an important role in communication among the deaf community, particularly for greetings or to get a person’s attention, 4 the students claimed that Taylor performed the embraces in an unusual manner. The other main source of evidence against Taylor was the recording of Taylor’s interrogation. The recording included video of the sign-language communications between Taylor and the interpreters, as well as audio of the statements by the ³²⁸ ASL interpreter, Mr. Smith, interpreting what Taylor had said in sign language. The State called Detective Camp to establish a foundation for admitting the recording with an accompanying transcript.

Taylor objected to the admission of the interpreter’s words through the detective’s testimony. He requested that the State call the interpreter, Mr. Smith, to verify his interpretations of what Taylor had told him. His counsel argued that “based on the Confrontation Clause” Taylor had the right to “confront the person who is saying these things” on the recording and to cross-examine “Mr. Joe Smith, as an interpreter interpreting what [Taylor] is saying.” After commenting briefly that an interpreter was “not an accuser,” the court overruled the objection. The detective then testified about some of the things that Taylor “said” to her in the interrogation even though she heard his words only as reported or interpreted by Smith.

Taylor renewed his objection immediately before the State attempted to play the recording for the jurors. At that point, defense counsel asked the court to direct one of the sworn court interpreters to give a live interpretation of Taylor’s sign-language responses, rather than permit the jury to hear the account of an absent witness, Smith, about what Taylor had said. The defense also asked “to put on the record” that in United States v. Charles, 722 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir.2013), the United States Court of Appeals held that a defendant has the right to cross-examine an interpreter who interpreted the defendant’s statements in a police interrogation. The court overruled the renewed objection.

The court then permitted the State to play the nearly five-hour recording. The State provided jurors with an audio transcript that Detective Camp had prepared. The first page noted that “throughout the interview, all statements attributed to both Clarence Taylor and [Certified Deaf Interpreter] Charm Smith are as interpreted through Joe Smith.” The jurors received copies of the transcript with a cautionary ³²⁹ instruction that they should consider only the video and audio as evidence. 5 E. Taylor’s Defense and the Conclusion of Trial Taylor took the stand as the only witness in his defense. He denied any inappropriate touching of students.

He testified that he could accidentally have made contact with a student’s breasts or buttocks, but that he would have apologized if he had done so. With respect to the statements attributed to him by the interpreter, Taylor repeatedly asserted that there were many “misinterpretations” and “miscommunications” between him and the interpreters. Taylor claimed that he had difficulty communicating with Smith at the beginning of the interview and that he had asked to have an attorney present during questioning. Taylor also claimed that he had never admitted diming the interrogation to any specific instance of physical contact with a student.

The following exchange occurred during the State’s cross-examination of Taylor: Q: [DJuring your interview with [Detective Camp], you stated several times that you did touch these girls but it was an accident. Correct? A: Well, let me clarify that first. There’s some misunderstandings in that video.

What I said is that it could have happened and if it did, it would have been an accident. I said it could have happened. The prosecutor asked Taylor to explain specific portions from the transcript in which the interpreter said that Taylor had said that he had apologized to specific students after accidentally touching them. Taylor consistently responded that the interpreter had not correctly interpreted his sign- ³³⁰ language statements.

He testified that he told the interpreters that, if he had touched anyone, it would have been an accident, and he would have apologized. In its closing argument, the State encouraged the jury to “[rjeally analyze th[e] interview.” The prosecutor argued that the jury should conclude that Taylor voluntarily made all of the. statements attributed to him by the interpreter.” She further contended that Taylor’s assertions that the interpreters made errors were not credible. Although the prosecutor encouraged the jury to disbelieve many portions of Taylor’s responses from the interrogation, she pointed out that “finally towards the end of [the interview], he acknowledge[d] what he did,” when the interpreter reported Taylor as admitting that he had touched the students, but claimed to have done so accidentally. During its closing argument, the defense asked the jurors to remember that they “never heard from the actual interpreter.” The State objected, and the court sustained that objection.

Defense counsel then commented that, in assessing the weight of the interpreted statements, the jury should consider that the interpreter had been paid by the police. The State then raised an “ongoing objection to any mention of the interpreters during that interview.” The court sustained the objection once again, asserting that it was “not relevant” that the interpreter had been solicited by the police. The judge then instructed the jury that it could not consider “the last two comments [from defense counsel] concerning the interpreter.” After several days of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict as to three of the seven charges. The jury found Taylor guilty of sexually abusing two victims: Da. and De.

The jury acquitted Taylor of the sexual abuse charge related to K. The jurors were unable to reach a verdict on the remaining counts for sexual abuse of P., M., S., or T. The court denied Taylor’s motion for new trial and sentenced him on January 31, 2013. The court imposed two consecutive sentences of 15 years of imprisonment, with all ³³¹ but three-and-a-half years of each sentence suspended, for a total term of seven years of incarceration. Taylor took a timely appeal from those judgments. Questions Presented Taylor now presents the following questions to this Court: 1.

Was [Taylor’s] constitutional right to confrontation violated when he was not given the opportunity to cross[-]examine the interpreter used by the police during his interrogation? 2. Did the trial court err in denying [Taylor’s] requests for postponement and to reschedule a hearing on his motion to suppress statements? 3. Did the trial court err in joining the seven charges against [Taylor] into one trial? 4. Did the trial court err in refusing to permit [Taylor] to cross-examine the victims’ parents about their pursuit of a civil suit? 5.

Did the trial court err in denying [Taylor’s] requests to subpoena witnesses? Answering the first question, we conclude that the trial court committed reversible error when it admitted the interpreter’s extrajudicial account of Taylor’s statements after Taylor had asserted his rights under the Confrontation Clause. We shall address the remaining issues to the extent that they are likely to recur at Taylor’s second trial. Discussion I. Taylor contends that the trial court erred when it admitted Smith’s English-language interpretations of Taylor’s sign-language statements.

According to Taylor, the admission of the interpreted statements, under circumstances where he had no opportunity to cross-examine the interpreter during the State’s case against him, violated his constitutional right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. ³³² We review the ultimate question of whether the admission of evidence violated a defendant’s constitutional rights without deference to the trial court’s ruling. See Hailes v. State, 442 Md. 488, 506 , 118 A.3d 608 (2015) (applying de novo standard of review to appeal based on Confrontation Clause). A. Constitutional Right of Confrontation in Criminal Proceedings The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him[.]” In this context, confrontation means more than simply a face-to-face meeting between accusers and the accused. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 315 , 94 S.Ct. 1105 , 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974).

The “main and essential purpose” of the Confrontation Clause is to ensure that the defendant has an opportunity for effective cross-examination of adverse witnesses, “which cannot be had except by the direct and personal putting of questions and obtaining immediate answers.” Id. at 315-16 , 94 S.Ct. 1105 (citations and quotation marks omitted). During an in-person cross-examination, “the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of witnesses, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and judge his demeanor upon the stand and in the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief.” Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 242-43 , 15 S.Ct. 337 , 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895). Because the safeguard of cross-examination is essential to a fair trial, the right of confrontation is a fundamental right that applies during state as well as federal prosecutions. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403 , 85 S.Ct. 1065 , 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965).

In Maryland, the constitutional right of confrontation predates the federal Constitution. Article XIX of the Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776 declared that “in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right ... to be confronted ³³³ with the witnesses against him[ ] ... [and] to examine the witnesses for and against him on oath[.]” Identical language is currently embodied in Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Maryland’s confrontation right is interpreted to “generally provid[e] the same protection to defendants” as its federal counterpart. Derr v. State, 434 Md. 88 , 103 & n. 11, 73 A.3d 254 (2013) (citations omitted), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 134 S.Ct. 2723 , 189 L.Ed.2d 762 (2014); see Cooper v. State, 434 Md. 209, 232 , 73 A.3d 1108 (2013).

The dual confrontation clauses of the Bill of Rights and the Maryland Declaration of Rights focus upon a singular category of persons: the “witnesses against” a defendant. This group naturally includes the persons formally called by the State to testify against the defendant at trial. The text of these provisions, however, does not indicate the extent to which a prosecutor may introduce the out-of-court statements of persons who do not testify in the prosecution’s case at trial. In the landmark ease of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 , 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the Supreme Court redefined many of the core principles for evaluating whether a criminal defendant has the right to require the prosecution to produce the declarants of extrajudicial statements so that the defendant can confront and cross-examine them.

Our analysis begins with Crawford , the opinion that essentially “ ‘rewrote confrontation clause analysis.’ ” State v. Norton, 443 Md. 517 , 524 n. 8, 117 A.3d 1055 (2015) (quoting 6A Lynn McLain, Maryland Evidence: State and Federal § 800:5 (3d ed.2013)). The defendant in that case, Michael Crawford, stabbed a man. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 38 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . Crawford’s wife, Sylvia, witnessed the stabbing.

Id. At trial, Crawford’s wife did not testify, “because of the state marital privilege, which generally bars a spouse from testifying without the other spouse’s consent.” Id. at 40 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . The trial court nevertheless allowed the State to introduce a recording of statements from a police interrogation, in which Sylvia Crawford arguably undermined her husband’s claim of self-defense. Id.

The Supreme Court ultimately determined that ³³⁴ the use of Ms. Crawford’s statements at Crawford’s trial, where Crawford had no opportunity to cross-examine her, violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 68-69 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . In an opinion by Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court looked to the historical background of the Confrontation Clause in an effort to understand its meaning. Id. at 43 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

According to the Court, the Confrontation Clause emerged out of the response to controversial criminal trial practices in England and in the American colonies that departed from “[t]he common-law tradition ... of live testimony in court subject to adversarial testing[.]” Id. (citing 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 373-74 (1768)). During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, criminal tribunals sometimes admitted transcripts from pretrial examinations, in which witnesses had been questioned in private by judicial officers. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 43-48 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . “Through a series of statutory and judicial reforms, English law developed a right of confrontation that limited these abuses.” Id. at 44 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

Declarations of rights adopted by Maryland and other states, and eventually the federal Bill of Rights, guaranteed a confrontation right to secure this common-law safeguard. Id. at 48-49 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . From this history, the Court inferred that “the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused.” Id. at 50 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . The Court then construed the Clause’s text in light of that historical purpose: The text of the Confrontation Clause reflects this focus.

It applies to “witnesses” against the accused — in other words, those who “bear testimony.” 2 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). “Testimony,” in turn, is typically “[a] solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.” Ibid. An accuser who makes a formal statement to government officers bears testimony in a sense that a person who ³³⁵ makes a casual remark to an acquaintance does not. The constitutional text, like the history underlying the common-law right of confrontation, thus reflects an especially acute concern with a specific type of out-of-court statement. Id. at 51 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

The Court concluded that the right of confrontation attaches to hearsay statements that are “testimonial.” Id. Without selecting any “comprehensive definition of ‘testimonial,’ ” the Court reasoned that the term “applies at a minimum ... to police interrogations,” which are among “the modern practices with closest kinship to the abuses at which the Confrontation Clause was directed.” Id. at 68 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . The Court specifically noted that “[p]olice interrogations bear a striking resemblance to examinations by justices of the peace in England,” who performed “an essentially investigative and prosecutorial function” in producing evidence from witnesses who were not always under oath. Id. at 52-53 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

Consequently, the Court held that the recorded statements from the interrogation of Crawford’s wife were testimonial. Id. at 68 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . As part of its analysis, Crawford expressly repudiated a prior test that had premised the admissibility of unconfronted hearsay upon judicial determinations of reliability. In so doing, the Court overruled Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 , 100 S.Ct. 2531 , 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), which had held that it did not violate the Confrontation Clause to admit hearsay statements from a declarant who was not present for cross-examination, as long as the declarant was unavailable, and the statement either fell “within a firmly rooted hearsay exception” or bore “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 66 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

Crawford emphatically rejected the notion that courts can employ general hearsay exceptions or the “indicia or reliability” of an out-of-court statement to dispense with a defendant’s right to require the prosecution to produce the witnesses against him or her so that they could be subjected to cross-examination. See id. at 51, 61 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 . Reasoning that the Clause permits “only those exceptions established at the time of the found ³³⁶ ing,” 6 the Court held that testimonial hearsay from an absent witness is generally admissible against a criminal defendant only if the declarant is unavailable, and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine that witness. Id. at 54 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 .

Taylor had no pre-trial opportunities to cross-examine the sign-language interpreter, Joe Smith, about his interpretation of what Taylor had communicated to him. The State neither asserted nor made any showing that Smith was unavailable, and the court made no finding of the witness’s unavailability. Accordingly, our reasoning here turns on whether the challenged statements are testimonial hearsay under Crawford and its progeny. For over a decade, the Supreme Court has developed and refined its analysis of what Crawford called “testimonial hearsay.” The Court has consistently declined to offer any exhaustive definition, but cases that have determined whether a statement is testimonial fall into two main categories.

The first series of cases, flowing directly from Crawford , involves oral statements given in response to questioning from government actors. See Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 826-29 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 , 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006) (phone conversation between domestic violence victim and 911 operator was not testimonial because its primary purpose was to enable police to meet an ongoing emergency); id. at 829-32 , 126 S.Ct. ³³⁷ 2266 (in a consolidated case Hammon v. Indiana, victim’s statement describing domestic abuse to police at crime scene shortly after assault was testimonial because there was no emergency, and the primary purpose was to investigate a possible crime); Michigan v. Bryant, 562 U.S. 344, 370-78 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 , 179 L.Ed.2d 93 (2011) (statements from mortally-wounded shooting victim to officers responding at scene were not testimonial because the primary purpose was to meet an ongoing emergency and to ascertain whether the shooter posed a threat to the police and public, and because the questioning lacked formality); Ohio v. Clark, — U.S.-, 135 S.Ct. 2173, 2181-82 , 192 L.Ed.2d 306 (2015) (child-abuse report from three-year-old to preschool teachers was not testimonial because it was not made for the primary purpose of creating evidence, but of meeting an ongoing emergency involving suspected abuse); see also Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353, 356-58 , 128 S.Ct. 2678 , 171 L.Ed.2d 488 (2008) (assuming without deciding that abuse victim’s report to police was testimonial). The second line of cases concerns written reports, solicited by state actors and created specifically to serve as evidence in a criminal case. See Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 309-11 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 , 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009) (affidavits from state laboratory technicians certifying composition and amount of seized drug sample were testimonial); Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. 647 , 131 S.Ct. 2705, 2716-17 , 180 L.Ed.2d 610 (2011) (unsworn forensic report certifying blood-alcohol concentration of seized blood sample was testimonial); Williams v. Illinois, — U.S. -, 132 S.Ct. 2221, 2242-44 , 183 L.Ed.2d 89 (2012) (plurality opinion determining that DNA profile report from independent laboratory was not testimonial).

The statements of an interpreter hired by police to assist in a station-house interrogation do not fit neatly into just one of these two categories. The Supreme Court has neither decided nor commented upon the issue that we face here: whether the interpreter’s statements about what the defendant said qualify as “testimonial.” Nevertheless, the Supreme Court’s post- ³³⁸ Crawford jurisprudence, when viewed in its entirety, supplies the tools needed to answer that question. B. Inquiries Derived from Crawford and Other Interrogation Cases In Norton , the Court of Appeals’ most recent opinion analyzing testimonial hearsay, the Court identified a number of inquiries that can be derived from Crawford and its successors. First of all, “[t]o whom the statement is made is a key component” in determining whether a statement is testimonial.

Norton, 443 Md. at 530 , 117 A.3d 1055 ; accord Clark, 135 S.Ct. at 2182 ; Bryant, 562 U.S. at 369 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 . Because the involvement of government officials performing an investigative function implicates the core concerns of the Confrontation Clause (Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52-53 , 56 n. 7, 124 S.Ct. 1354 ; Bryant, 562 U.S. at 358 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 ), statements made to law enforcement officers “principally charged with uncovering and prosecuting criminal behavior” are significantly more likely to be considered testimonial than statements made to others. See Clark, 135 S.Ct. at 2182 . A concomitant inquiry looks to the purpose of the statement, specifically “whether, when viewed objectively, the challenged statement was ‘made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact’ in a criminal prosecution or investigation.” Norton, 443 Md. at 531 , 117 A.3d 1055 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ).

Typically, statements made in response to questions from law enforcement “are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate” that there is no ongoing emergency requiring police assistance “and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or to prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 822 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 . This primary purpose determination “requires a combined inquiry that accounts for both the declarant and the interrogator” and looks to “the contents of both the questions and the answers.” Bryant, 562 U.S. at 367-68 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 . Not only “[t]he identity of an interrogator” but also “the content and tenor of [the] questions can illuminate the primary pur ³³⁹ pose of the interrogation.” Id. at 369 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 (citations and quotation marks omitted). In this case, “[i]t is entirely clear from the circumstances that the interrogation was part of an investigation into possibly past criminal conduct[.]” Davis, 547 U.S. at 829 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 ; see also State v. Lucas, 407 Md. 307, 319 , 965 A.2d 75 (2009).

The main interrogator here, Detective Camp, was a law enforcement officer whose primary job responsibility was to investigate sexual abuse and similar crimes. The challenged statements were “made in the course of a criminal investigation initiated by the government[.]” State v. Snowden, 385 Md. 64, 81 , 867 A.2d 314 (2005) (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 50-52 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ). Both the questions and answers from the interview sought to establish facts related to Taylor’s possibly criminal actions from over a year earlier. The exchange took place “some time after the events were over,” and it was designed to elicit “what happened,” in the past tense.

Davis, 547 U.S. at 830 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 . Although we can imagine situations in which an interpreted interview might seek to resolve some ongoing emergency involving the abuse of minors (e.g., Clark, 135 S.Ct. at 2181 ), any such emergency had ended long before the arrest, when the School removed Taylor from his custodial role. In sum, “[objectively viewed, the primary, if not indeed the sole, purpose of the interrogation was to investigate a possible crime[.]” Davis, 547 U.S. at 830 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 . 7 In Williams v. Illinois, — U.S.-, 132 S.Ct. 2221 , 183 L.Ed.2d 89 (2012), a plurality of the Supreme Court endorsed ³⁴⁰ a more restrictive version of the primary purpose test. Williams involved a laboratory report that analyzed DNA from a semen sample that had been recovered from a rape victim.

Justice Alito and three other justices concluded that the report was not testimonial because “[i]t plainly was not prepared for the primary purpose of accusing a targeted individual,” but rather “to catch a dangerous rapist who was still at large.” Id. at 2243 . The Maryland Court of Appeals has held that a statement is testimonial if it has a basic evidentiary purpose and if it satisfies Justice Alito’s “targeted accusation” test. See Norton, 443 Md. at 542-47 , 117 A.3d 1055 (analyzing Young v. United States, 63 A.3d 1033 (D.C.2013)). Even under this narrowly defined test of the primary purpose, however, the challenged statements in this case qualify as testimonial — the police were not seeking to apprehend a sexual predator who was still at large; they were interviewing the lone suspect, who was already under arrest.

Other inquiries for evaluating a statement’s testimonial nature focus less on the parties involved in the exchange and more on the objective circumstances surrounding the statement. The Court of Appeals directs us to examine whether the statement was solicited “under circumstances that ‘would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.’ ” Norton, 443 Md. at 531 , 117 A.3d 1055 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ). A related “query from Crawford is whether the statement under scrutiny was made in a formal context.” Norton, 443 Md. at 531 , 117 A.3d 1055 . This evaluation “may turn on the form of the statement as well as other circumstances involving the creation of the statement, such as if it was offered in the confines of a police interview room.” Id. at 531-32 , 117 A.3d 1055 (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52-53 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ); e.g., Bryant, 562 U.S. at 362 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 (distinguishing informal and disorganized questioning in exposed public area from the “formal station-house interrogation in Crawford ”).

Looking to these objective circumstances, an ordinary person in the interpreter’s position would have anticipated that ³⁴¹ the “statements to the sexual abuse investigator” about what the suspect, Taylor, had said “potentially would have been used to ‘prosecute’ [Taylor].” Snowden, 385 Md. at 84 , 867 A.2d 314 ; cf. Clark, 135 S.Ct. at 2181-82 (child’s report to preschool teachers was non-testimonial where the child neither was informed nor intended nor understood that his statements would be used by police or prosecutors). Taylor’s interview was characterized by precisely the level of formality as the questioning of Sylvia Crawford, which “followed a Miranda warning, was tape recorded, and took place at the station house.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 830 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53 n. 4, 124 S.Ct. 1354 .). When the detective told Smith to inform Taylor that “anything [he] sa[id]” could be used against him, a reasonable person in the interpreter’s position would expect that his English interpretations of Taylor’s statements would also be used prosecutorially. See Davis, 547 U.S. at 837-38 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (Thomas, J., concurring). 8 In a series of single-author concurring opinions, Justice Thomas has advocated a test that does not look to the purpose of the out-of-court statement, but to whether the statement falls into a recognized category of formalized evidentiary materials.

See Clark, 135 S.Ct. at 2185-86 (concurring in judgment); Bryant, 562 U.S. at 378-79 , 131 S.Ct. 1143 (concurring in judgment); Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 329-30 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (concurring); Giles, 554 U.S. at 377-78 , 128 S.Ct. 2678 (concurring); Davis, 547 U.S. at 823 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (concurring in judgment and dissenting in part). According to Justice Thomas, “the Confrontation Clause regulates only the use of statements bearing ‘indicia of solemnity.’ ” Williams, 132 S.Ct. at 2259 (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting Davis, 547 ³⁴² U.S. at 837, 126 S.Ct. 2266 (Thomas, J., concurring)). Justice Thomas’s rationale gained greater importance when he cast the deciding vote in Williams v. Illinois. See Norton, 443 Md. at 546-47 , 117 A.3d 1055 ; Derr, 434 Md. at 114-15 , 73 A.3d 254 .

Speaking generally, Justice Thomas has “concluded that the Confrontation Clause reaches ... statements resulting from formalized dialogue, such as custodial interrogation.” Williams, 132 S.Ct. at 2260 (Thomas, J., concurring) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Although Justice Thomas did not write separately in Crawford , he later identified the Miranda warning as the most important indicia of solemnity in that case. See Davis, 547 U.S. at 837-38 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (Thomas, J., concurring) (explaining that a warning that statements may be used in court “imports a solemnity to the process that is not present in a mere conversation between a witness and a suspect or a police officer”). Under the circumstances here, the structured police questioning after a Miranda warning carried as much formality and solemnity as the interrogation from Crawford .

Indeed, outside of a courtroom setting, it is difficult to imagine any facts that would have increased the formality of the interpreter’s statements about what Taylor had said. Perhaps the detective could have asked Smith to “swear or affirm under the penalties of perjury to interpret accurately, completely, and impartially[.]” Md. Rule 1-333(d)(3) (oath for court interpreters); see also Fed.R.Evid. 604. The Supreme Court, however, has clearly established that unsworn statements may be testimonial. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 52 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 (explaining that “absence of oath [is] not dispositive”); see Davis, 547 U.S. at 826 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 ; see also Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2717 (rejecting as “implausible” and “untenable” a construction of the Sixth Amendment that would sanction unfettered use of unsworn evidentiary materials).

In any event, even without taking such an oath, professional sign-language interpreters (as opposed to ordinary citizens) typically have an ethical if not legal duty to “[r]ender the message faithfully by conveying the content and spirit of what is being communicated.” See National Association for the Deaf and ³⁴³ Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Code of Professional Conduct, available at http://www.rid.org/ethics/code-of-professional-conduct/ (last visited Dec. 23, 2015). 9 In sum, the relevant inquiries from Crawford lead us to conclude that the interpreter’s statements about what Taylor had said were testimonial. The interpreter, responding to a police request, made recorded statements, inside a police interview room, to detectives investigating Taylor’s past criminal conduct, and for the purpose of producing evidence that might be used to prosecute Taylor. “Such statements under official interrogation are an obvious substitute for live testimony, because they do precisely what a witness does on direct examination; they are inherently testimonial.” Davis, 547 U.S. at 830 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (emphasis in original). C. Possible Justifications for an Interpreter Exception to Crawford The context for Smith’s statements was equivalent to the context of the testimonial statements made in Crawford . The content of the interpreter’s testimony, however, was markedly different.

Even accepting that Smith was a “witness” for Sixth Amendment purposes, an interpreter is not the same type of witness as Sylvia Crawford was. Consequently, we need to inquire whether language specialists such as Smith fall into some special category of witnesses who are exempt from cross-examination. For instance, in admitting Smith’s statements at Taylor’s trial, the trial judge commented that the interpreter was “not an accuser” in the ordinary sense. 10 Smith was not recalling ³⁴⁴ any events he had observed at the Maryland School for the Deaf, but was speaking almost simultaneously as he observed Taylor inside the interview room. The interpreter himself was not under interrogation, but was only responding to an open-ended request to relate what Taylor was expressing in sign language.

As the State contends, the overall accuracy of Smith’s interpretations could have been tested (perhaps fairly enough) through other witnesses such as Detective Camp, Taylor himself, or even sign-language experts called by the defense. The State also contends that, if Taylor indeed believed that Smith’s live testimony was particularly important, he could have used his subpoena power to call Smith as a defense witness. Crawford does not directly address these arguments. Looking solely at Crawford and other cases involving official interrogations, we have little guidance to determine whether these distinctions might remove an interpreter from the constitutional category of the “witnesses against” a defendant.

Nevertheless, in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 , 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009), and Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. 647 , 131 S.Ct. 2705 , 180 L.Ed.2d 610 (2011), the Supreme Court considered and rejected each one of those potential justifications for reading such an exemption into the Confrontation Clause. In Melendez-Diaz , the Court “refused to create a ‘forensic evidence’ exception” to the confrontation requirement. Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2713 (citing Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 317-21 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 ). Melendez-Diaz challenged the admission of statements from non-testifying forensic experts reporting the results of chemical analysis that identified a seized substance as cocaine of a specific quantity.

Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 307-09 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 . The analysts made those statements in sworn certificates, created solely for an evidentiary purpose in response to a police request. Id. at 310-11 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 . In what it called a “rather straightforward ³⁴⁵ application” (id. at 312, 129 S.Ct. 2527 ) of the Crawford rule, a majority of the Court concluded that “the analysts’ affidavits were testimonial statements, and the analysts were ‘witnesses’ for purposes of the Sixth Amendment.” Id. at 311, 129 S.Ct. 2527 .

Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2709-11 , concerned an unsworn laboratory report that certified the machine-generated results of a blood-alcohol concentration test and asserted that the analyst had followed proper protocol. The Court reasoned that its “precedent cannot sensibly be read in any other way” than to dictate the conclusion that “when the State elected to introduce [the analyst’s] certification, [the analyst] became a witness [whom] Bullcoming had the right to confront.” Id. at 2716. The Court also rejected the argument that the state could introduce the analysts’ statements through a second expert who was familiar with the general testing procedures, but who had not performed or observed the test. Id. at 2709, 2714-15.

Together, the Court’s opinions in Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming systematically rejected a series of justifications for creating an exemption to the Confrontation Clause for experts who analyze evidence for police. In the former case, Massachusetts had argued that its chemical analysts were not “witnesses against” Melendez-Diaz because they were not “ ‘accusatory’ witnesses, in that they [did] not directly accuse [him] of wrongdoing[.]” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 313 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 . As the Supreme Court explained, however, the Sixth Amendment contemplates only two categories of witnesses in relation to a criminal defendant: the “witnesses against him” in the Confrontation Clause; and the “witnesses in his favor” in the Compulsory Process Clause. Id. “The prosecution must produce the former; the defendant may call the latter.” Id. at 313-14 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (emphasis in original).

There can be no “third category of witnesses, helpful to the prosecution, but somehow immune from confrontation.” Id. at 314 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 . Thus, even though Smith did not personally accuse Taylor of doing anything other than giving certain responses to questions, the interpreter nonetheless became a “witness against” Taylor when the State offered ³⁴⁶ the interpreter’s extrajudicial account of Taylor’s statements against Taylor in his prosecution. See id. at 313-14 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 ; Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2716 . The Melendez-Diaz Court dismissed the notion that expert analysts do not qualify as “witnesses against” a defendant simply because the persons who analyze evidence often report “ ‘near-contemporaneous observations’ ” rather than recalling “ ‘events observed in the past[.]’ ” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 315 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting id. at 345 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (Kennedy, J., dissenting)).

Finding no justification to import that temporal distinction into the Sixth Amendment, the Court reasoned that the right of confrontation reaches even those statements that could be treated as present-sense impressions. See id. at 316 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (citing Davis, 547 U.S. at 820 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 ). Consequently, it makes no difference here that, in giving his account of what Taylor had said, the interpreter was consulting his short-term memory of Taylor’s near-contemporaneous sign-language communications rather than his long-term memory. In a similar regard, the Supreme Court rejected the suggestion that witnesses are not “witnesses against” a defendant if “they ‘observe[] neither the crime nor any human action related to it.’ ” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 316 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting id. at 345 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (Kennedy, J., dissenting)).

The Court found “no authority for this particular type of limitation,” noting that such a “novel exception ... would exempt all expert witnesses.” Id. at 316 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 . Accordingly, the interpreter does not escape confrontation simply because he, like the chemists and technicians who produced the evidence used against Melendez-Diaz and Bull-coming, did not personally observe any criminal act. Furthermore, the Court in Melendez-Diaz was unpersuaded by the argument that the assertions of the expert analysts were non-testimonial because the analysts were not responding to direct questions from law enforcement. The Court explained that a witness still “bears testimony” even when that testimony is volunteered or given in response to an open- ³⁴⁷ ended inquiry.

Id. at 316 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (citing Davis, 547 U.S. at 822 -23 n. 1, 126 S.Ct. 2266 ). A comparable argument fared no better in Bullcoming , when New Mexico attempted to exempt a laboratory analyst from confrontation by arguing that his report was not “ ‘adversarial’ ” or “ ‘inquisitorial[.]’ ” Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2717 . Even a simple police request to “ ‘write down what happened’ suffices to trigger the Sixth Amendment’s protection[.]” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 317 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Davis, 547 U.S. at 819-20 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 ). Here, Smith’s extrajudicial account of what Taylor said is no less testimonial because he delivered his account in response to a general request from police to interpret Taylor’s answers into English.

In Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 317 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 Massachusetts argued that confrontation rights are not implicated when a witness’s testimony results from “neutral, scientific testing.” The State of New Mexico later echoed that argument, asserting that Bullcoming had no right to cross-examine a laboratory analyst because that analyst had recorded an objective fact when he transcribed a machine-produced result. Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2714 . In both instances, the Court reiterated Crawford’s core holding that the substantive reliability of the admitted evidence is not a valid basis for ignoring the specific procedural right guaranteed by the Constitution. See id. at 2715 (citing Crawford, 541 U.S. at 62 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ); Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 317-18 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 (quoting Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61-62 , 124 S.Ct. 1354 ).

Adopting an approach much like that of the unsuccessful states in Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming , the State attempts to minimize the role of the interpreter in this case. According to the State’s brief, the interpreter, Smith, was “merely a relay for Taylor’s own statements,” “simply conveying, in a different language” Taylor’s testimony, or “simply relating the statements of the defendant” rather than “providing his own independent statements.” In other words, the State contends that the interpreter was “simply” or “merely” interpreting. These repeated assertions are less a legal argument and more of a rhetorical exercise in characterization. It is not enough ³⁴⁸ for our constitutional analysis to select a synonym for “interpreting” and then to attach the adverb “merely” or “simply” to it.

In our view, the State’s contention that Smith served as “merely a relay” is no more persuasive than the faulty assertion of the Supreme Court of New Mexico that a forensic lab technician served as a “ ‘mere scrivener,’ ” who did nothing more than record the results of a machine-generated test. See Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2714 (citation omitted); see also id. at 2715 (rejecting premise that analyst’s task “called for no interpretation or exercise of independent judgment”). The Supreme Court declined to uphold the reasoning of the New Mexico court, which had taken the view that “Bullcoming’s true accuser” (id. at 2714 (citations and quotation marks omitted)) was the machine that produced the test results, and which had reasoned that Bullcoming could not cross-examine that machine. Id. at 2713 (citations omitted).

The State’s argument here, not coincidentally, follows that same pattern, by contending that the only “witness is the defendant [Taylor], not the interpreter [Smith],” and that Taylor has “no Sixth Amendment right to confront himself.” In dicta, the Supreme Court in Bullcoming went on to explain that even an officer’s report of an “objective fact” such as “the address above the front door of a house or the readout of a radar gun” cannot be admitted against an accused through testimony of someone other than the officer who personally made the observations. Id. at 2714. By analogy, Smith would be subject to cross-examination in the State’s case even if we were to imagine that he were operating some kind of sign-language interpretation machine and reading the output for the detectives. Those testimonial statements could not be admitted through a person such as Detective Camp, who by her own admission had no knowledge of the meaning of Taylor’s answers aside from what she heard from Smith.

See id.; see also Davis, 547 U.S. at 826 , 126 S.Ct. 2266 (“the protections of the Confrontation Clause” may not “readily be evaded by having a note-taking policeman recite the ... hearsay testimony of the declarant”) (emphasis in original). ³⁴⁹ In essence, the State asks us to reason that, in converting a person’s statements from one language to another, an interpreter does not assert anything at all. To the contrary, Smith made representations each time he translated statements from one language to another. See, e.g., State v. Rodriguez-Castillo, 345 Or. 39, 47 , 188 P.3d 268 (2008) (rejecting state’s argument that interpreter makes no independent assertions when interpreter converts statements between languages). For example, one portion of the interrogation transcript contains this simple exchange: DET.

CAMP: What about when you hug the girls? [TAYLOR]: Yes. I do, we do hug. The actual speaker of that answer was not Taylor, a man who literally does not and cannot enunciate spoken words in the English language. Rather, the speaker was the interpreter, Smith, attributing the response to Taylor.

In the example above, two declarants made testimonial assertions: Taylor made a declaration in sign language; and then Smith, in his interpretation of Taylor’s sign-language declaration, declared that Taylor had said that he (Taylor) had hugged the female students. Taylor is the declarant of his sign-language responses (recorded on the video), and Smith is the declarant of his English interpretations of Taylor’s responses (recorded on the audio). See Rodriguez-Castillo, 345 Or. at 47 , 188 P.3d 268 ; State v. Terrazas, 162 Ariz. 357, 359 , 783 P.2d 803 (Ariz.App.1989) (quoting State v. Letterman, 47 Or.App. 1145, 1148 , 616 P.2d 505 (1980)); accord United States v. Charles, 722 F.3d 1319, 1324 (11th Cir.2013). 11 By treating Smith as nothing more than a neutral mouthpiece through which Taylor’s messages passed without being ³⁵⁰ affected in any way, the State asks us to endorse a fallacy or misconception that ignores the reality of language interpretation. Translating or interpreting another language into English is no “simple” task: “An interpreter must listen to what is being said, comprehend the message, abstract the entire message from the words and the word order, store the idea, search his or her memory for the conceptual and semantic matches, and reconstruct the message (keeping the same register or level of difficulty as in the source language).

While doing this, the interpreter is speaking and listening for the next utterance of the language to process, while monitoring his or her own output.” State v. Montoya-Franco, 250 Or.App. 665, 672 , 282 P.3d 939 (2012) (quoting Cathy Rhodes, Court Certification, 1 Access to Justice Journal 1, 2 (Summer 1999)). “Some judges and attorneys have a mistaken belief than an interpreter renders ... proceedings word for word, but this is impossible because there is not a one-to-one correspondence between words or concepts in different languages.” National Association of Judicial Interpreters and Translators, FAQ About Court and Legal Interpreting and Translating, http:// www.najit.org/certification/faq.php#judiciary (last visited Sept. 1, 2015); accord Md. Rules App’x: Explanations of Responses to Voir Dire Questions for Interpreters, Question 27 (2015) (“Verbatim [or] ‘word-for-word’ [interpretation] ... is impossible in interpreting since it would necessitate a disregard for grammar and other features unique to a language ... A proper interpretation will retain the mood, tone, nuances, and meaning of the speaker to the extent that the target language has an appropriate equivalent”). American Sign Language is no different from foreign languages in this respect. “American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete, complex language that employs signs made by moving the hands combined with facial expressions and postures of the body.” National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, American Sign Language Fact ³⁵¹ Sheet, at 1 (Feb.2015), available at http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/ staticresources/healtb/hearing/MIDCD-American-Sign-Language.pdf (last visited Dec. 23, 2015). “ASL is a language completely separate and distinct from English. It contains all the fundamental features of language — it has its own rules for pronunciation, word order, and complex grammar....

For example, English speakers ask a question by raising the pitch of their voice; ASL users ask a question by raising their eyebrows, widening their eyes, and tilting their bodies forward.” Id. at 2. Specific ways of communicating ideas in ASL vary as a result of regional variation, factors such as age and ethnicity, and individual differences in expression. See id. The absence of any direct equivalence between sign-language expressions and spoken English sentences is the very reason that the police required the services of the Certified Deaf Interpreter, Charm Smith, during the interrogation.

Recognizing the high level of education, knowledge, skills, and judgment needed to produce faithful interpretations between English and sign language, Maryland typically requires that court interpreters of sign language undergo a rigorous certification process. See generally Md. Rule 1-333; Md. Rules App’x: Explanations of Responses to Moir Dire Questions for Interpreters, Questions 11-12 (2015); Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, National Interpreter Certification (NIC), http://www.rid.org/rid-certification-overview/niccertification/ (last visited Dec. 23, 2015). The interpreters’ primary role is “to apply their best skills and judgment to preserve faithfully the meaning of what is said[.]” See Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts, Maryland Court Interpreter Handbook, at 10 (July 2015), available at http:// www.courts.state.md.us/interpreter/ (last visited Dec. 23, 2015); accord National Association of the Deaf and Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Code of Professional Conduct, available at http://www.rid.org/ethics/code-of-professionalconduct/ (last visited Dec. 23, 2015) (guiding professional interpreters to “exercise judgment, employ critical thinking, apply the benefits of practical experience, and reflect on past experience in the practice of their profession”). ³⁵² The English words that the jurors ultimately heard in this case were not the words of Taylor, but of Smith, expressing his opinion as to a faithful reproduction of the meaning of Taylor’s sign-language expressions. As this Court observed in another case in which a witness testified about the meaning of out-of-court statements spoken by a defendant in a foreign tongue: “To the extent to which someone translates words [from a non-English language] into English, the rendering of an opinion is inherent in the situation.” Malekar v. State, 26 Md.App. 498, 508 , 338 A.2d 328 (1975).

In Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 318-21 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 Massachusetts argued for an exception to the Confrontation Clause by contending that requiring confrontation for forensic experts would have little or no utility in a criminal trial. The Supreme Court rejected that premise and identified a number of ways in which cross-examination might expose false or inaccurate testimony regarding scientific testing, such as dishonesty, bias, errors, incompetence, or deficiencies in the expert’s training, judgment, or methodology. See id. at 318-21 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 ; see also Bullcoming, 131 S.Ct. at 2715 (reasoning that absence of cross-examination of technician deprived Bullcoming of opportunity to “expose any lapses or lies” or to show the technician’s “incompetence, evasiveness, or dishonesty”). No great stretch of imagination is required to think of similar examples of how cross-examination can address an interpreter’s proficiency, honesty, or methodology.

One common focus of cross-examination of an interpreter or translator is to inquire into the witness’s language fluency. See, e.g., United States v. Martinez-Gaytan, 213 F.3d 890, 892-93 (5th Cir.2000) (vacating denial of motion to suppress defendant’s confession interpreted into English by federal agent so that court could assess the agent’s ability as an interpreter and give defendant opportunity to attack quality of interpretations); United States v. Hernandez, 995 F.2d 307 , 311-12 & n. 9 (1st Cir.1993) (noting that defendants had opportunity on cross-examination to test Spanish language proficiency of DEA agent who translated incriminating statements into En ³⁵³ glish); Hernandez-Garza v. I.N.S., 882 F.2d 945, 947-48 (5th Cir.1989) (holding that immigration judge denied alien fair deportation proceeding by denying cross-examination to test language fluency of officers who transcribed English translation of alien’s Spanish-language statements) (“the attempt by ... counsel to test the agents’ fluency in Spanish was appropriate and reasonable, and may have been the only meaningful way to measure the testimony”). Just as the task of interpretation is not uniquely immune to human error, so too is it not uniquely immune to human suggestion or manipulation. The Supreme Court has expressed concern that experts “responding to a request from a law enforcement officer may feel pressure — or have an incentive — to alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution.” Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at 318 , 129 S.Ct. 2527 .

Those concerns may arise in the interrogation-room context, where an interpreter is not exercising professional judgment behind a “veil of ignorance [that] makes it unlikely that [he or she] has a defendant-related motive to behave dishonestly.” Williams, 132 S.Ct. at 2249 (Breyer, J., concurring). After spending hours within the coercive atmosphere of a police interrogation, hearing a veteran detective make targeted accusations at a suspect, an interpreter could conceivably become more error-prone or begin to shade the interpretations against the suspect. In addition, Taylor’s brief notes that fatigue resulting from the extraordinary mental demands of interpreting over prolonged periods can affect the accuracy of interpretations. See, e.g., Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts, Court Interpreter Coordinator Manual, at 59 (July 2015), available at http://www.courts.state.md.us/interpreter/pdfs/courtinter pretercoordinatormanual2015.pdf (last visited Dec. 23, 2015) (advising judges to provide periodic rest breaks for court interpreters because “interpreter accuracy declines significantly after 30 minutes of continuous interpretation”).

Over the nearly five-hour course of Taylor’s interrogation, the interpreters received only two breaks: a ten-minute break after about two and a half hours of testimony, and a two-minute ³⁵⁴ break another hour later. Most of the more incriminating statements attributed to Taylor occurred during the later portions of the interrogation. Live testimony from the interpreter might have suggested that fatigue or inattention undermined the accuracy of those interpretations. Even in cases where an interpreter is fully capable and impartial, questioning of the interpreter might illuminate the precise meaning of a particularly important statement.

For example, in People v. Gutierrez, 137 Cal.App.3d 542, 544-47 , 187 Cal.Rptr. 130 (1982), the court held that, in a Spanish-speaking defendant’s trial for forcible rape, the trial court infringed the defendant’s right to cross-examine the State’s witnesses by precluding questions about the actual Spanish words that he had used in his confession. The translator had interpreted the defendant’s confession to mean that he had physically forced himself upon the victim, but the court recognized that a “substantially different connotation could have been drawn by the jury had Gutierrez said he was only trying to force his affections upon [her].” Id. at 547 , 187 Cal.Rptr. 130 . Similarly, in Territory v. Kawano, 20 Haw. 469, 472-77 (Sup.Ct.Terr.Haw.1911), the court held that, in a Japanese-speaking defendant’s trial for committing perjury in a prior proceeding, the trial court improperly denied the defendant the right to cross-examine the court interpreter about the precise Japanese words that the defendant had used. The interpreter had translated the defendant’s statements to mean that the defendant had witnessed a business transaction, but the defendant claimed that he “did not testify positively” about the transaction and that he had prefaced his remarks (in Japanese) with the explanation that he believed his statements to be true based on what another person had told him.

Id. at 474 . In the instant case, a similarly subtle dispute over meaning was crucial: the interpreter stated that Taylor admitted that he repeatedly had touched specific body parts of specific students but that the touching was accidental; Taylor’s defense