The Third District Court of Appeal has held that a routine toxicology report prepared by a non-testifying analyst as part of a medical examiner’s statutory autopsy duty is not “testimonial” under the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause — meaning a testifying substitute expert may describe the report’s contents at trial without violating the defendant’s confrontation right.
The defendant, convicted of second-degree murder after admitting he stabbed the victim, argued on appeal that the trial court erred in allowing Miami-Dade’s chief medical examiner to testify about a routine toxicology report prepared by a non-testifying analyst during the autopsy. He relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Smith v. Arizona, which held that a substitute witness’s testimony about another analyst’s report can violate the Confrontation Clause when the underlying report is both hearsay and testimonial.
The Third District rejected the argument. The report was prepared under the medical examiner’s routine statutory duty to determine the cause of death — not to build a criminal case. As the court put it: “The primary purpose of an autopsy is to shed light on the cause of the victim’s death, an issue not present in this case because [the defendant] admitted to stabbing the victim.” Because the report’s primary purpose was not to advance a prosecution, it fell outside the category of testimonial statements the Confrontation Clause protects against, and the conviction was affirmed.
Citation: Fonte v. State, No. 3D25-0850 (Fla. 3d DCA Sept. 23, 2026).