Full Opinion

Cite as 2026 Ark. 159 SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS No. CR-25-618 Opinion Delivered: October 29, 2026 COOPER WESLEY APPELLANT APPEAL FROM THE CRAWFORD COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 17CR-23-689] V. HONORABLE MARC MCCUNE, JUDGE STATE OF ARKANSAS APPELLEE AFFIRMED. SHAWN A. WOMACK, Associate Justice A Crawford County jury convicted Wesley Cooper of two counts of capital murder. He appeals only one of those convictions, arguing that the circuit court’s admission of a statement from a deceased witness violated his confrontation rights. Although the circuit court erred in admitting this testimony, we affirm because the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. I. Background In 2023, Cooper Wesley shot and killed his neighbor, Donald Lewis, and his uncle, Terry Brasuell. Wesley, a drug user, erroneously believed that Lewis and Brasuell had killed his parents and sister when he was unable to get in touch with them (they were on a camping trip in an area with no cell-phone service). After concocting this theory, Wesley went to the Van Buren Walmart to buy black clothes for his homicidal “mission” to supposedly avenge his family. He also broke into his father’s safe and took two handguns, a Taurus 9mm and a Ruger .380. Wesley then drove to Lewis’s home and shot Lewis in the head as he opened the door. From there, he drove around looking for Brasuell, eventually finding him at the home of his own grandmother, Shirley. Shirley was talking to her neighbor, Melinda Ball, when Wesley jumped out of his truck and accused Brasuell of killing his family before shooting him twice in the head. Wesley then fled the scene as another neighbor called 911 to report the shooting. A responding officer’s dash-cam footage captured Ball telling an officer that she saw a man pull a gun on Brasuell and accuse Brasuell of killing his family before shooting him twice in the head. Police asked another neighbor, Helene Plonski, to write down this eyewitness statement from Ball. After receiving a 911 call about Brasuell’s murder––during which it was mistakenly reported that the murder had taken place near Lewis’s home––police responded and found Lewis dead in his doorway. After developing Wesley as a suspect, police arrested him, and he confessed to both murders. Prior to trial, Ball died. Wesley subsequently filed a motion in limine to exclude Ball’s written statement as both hearsay and as a violation of his confrontation rights. At a pretrial hearing on the motion, Wesley argued that her statement was testimonial and that he had no opportunity to cross-examine her before her death. The circuit court denied the motion in limine, finding that Ball’s statement was admissible as a present sense impression and excited utterance, but it did not rule on the confrontation issue at that hearing. Ball’s statement was later introduced at trial through Plonski. 2 After the State rested, Wesley renewed his objection to Ball’s statement, again claiming that it was both hearsay and a violation of his confrontation rights. The circuit court again denied the motion but again made only a hearsay finding. Then, at the close of all evidence, Wesley renewed his motion once more, which the circuit court generally denied without explicitly addressing either the hearsay or the confrontation-clause argument separately. The jury convicted Wesley of two counts of capital murder and sentenced him to two life sentences without the possibility of parole. This timely appeal followed, which this court has jurisdiction over because Welsey received a life sentence.1 II. Discussion Wesley’s only argument on appeal is that the circuit court violated his right to confront Ball about her testimony. Because this testimony concerns only his conviction for killing Brasuell, he does not challenge his conviction for killing Lewis. A. Preservation As a threshold matter, the State argues that Wesley’s argument is unpreserved because the circuit court never ruled on his confrontation-clause challenge. When a criminal 1 Ark. Sup. Ct. R. 1-2(a)(2). 3 defendant makes both a hearsay and a confrontation-clause challenge to testimony, he must obtain a ruling from the circuit court on both issues to preserve the arguments for appeal.2 At first glance, the situations in Bertrand and Proctor appear to be similar to what unfolded here. Bertrand moved to exclude testimony on both hearsay and confrontation grounds, and while the circuit court specifically ruled that the witness’s testimony was not hearsay, it did not rule on the confrontation-clause challenge.3 Because of this failure to obtain a ruling on his confrontation–clause argument, we held “that it is not preserved for our review.”4 Likewise, Proctor made both an evidentiary and a confrontation-clause challenge to testimony that the State sought to introduce at trial from his bond-revocation hearing.5 While the circuit court did rule on the Rule 804 evidentiary issue, it did not specifically rule on Proctor’s confrontation-clause claim.6 As a result, this court held that “[i]n view of Proctor’s two-fold argument below and the trial court’s failure to specify the basis for its ruling, we cannot say that Proctor failed to obtain a ruling on his Confrontation Clause argument.”7 2 Bertrand v. State, 363 Ark. 422, 429, 214 S.W.3d 822, 826–27 (2005); Proctor v. State, 349 Ark. 648, 662–63, 79 S.W.3d 370, 379 (2002). 3 Bertrand, 363 Ark. at 428, 214 S.W.3d at 826. 4 Id. at 429, 214 S.W.3d at 826–27. 5 Proctor, 349 Ark. at 662, 79 S.W.3d at 379. 6 Id. 7 Id. at 662–63, 79 S.W.3d at 379. 4 But unlike the defendants in Bertrand and Proctor, Wesley did obtain a general denial of his entire motion, which included his confrontation-clause objection, when he renewed his motion at the close of all evidence. For purposes of this appeal, we conclude that such a ruling preserved Wesley’s confrontation-clause claim, and we will address it on the merits. B. Confrontation-Clause Violation Wesley is right that the admission of Ball’s statement violated his right to confront witnesses against him. A criminal defendant “enjoy[s] the right to . . . be confronted with witnesses against him[.]”8 As the Supreme Court has explained, “[t]estimonial statements of witnesses absent from trial [can] be[] admitted only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine.”9 While Ball was obviously unavailable for trial because she died before it began, Wesley never had the chance to cross-examine her. Moreover, Ball’s statement that Wesley said to Brasuell, “[Y]ou killed my family” before shooting him—and detailing the shooting itself—was testimonial. A statement is testimonial when, “in light of all the circumstances” and “viewed objectively,” its “primary purpose . . . was to create an out-of-court substitute for trial testimony.”10 As the Supreme Court explained in Davis v. Washington, while “[s]tatements 8 U.S. Const. amend VI. 9 Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 59 (2004). 10 Ohio v. Clark, 576 U.S. 237, 245 (2015) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). 5 are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency,” statements “are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.”11 The latter is the case here because Plonksi took Ball’s written statement, at the direction of police, after an ambulance had taken Brasuell to the hospital and after Ball had already relayed her eyewitness account to an officer.12 It is clear then that the primary purpose of Ball’s written statement, to the objective viewer, was “to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” 13 The State does not challenge this; instead, it jumps ahead to argue that any error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. On that point, the State is right. When a defendant’s right to confront witnesses is violated, the “inquiry is whether, assuming that the damaging potential of the cross-examination were fully realized, a reviewing court might nonetheless say that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”14 “Whether such an error is harmless in a particular case depends upon a host of 11 547 U.S. 813, 822 (2006). 12 See Davis v. State, 2011 Ark. 373, at 4–5 (explaining that a statement to police in the course of a homicide investigation is testimonial for purposes of the confrontation clause). 13 Davis, 547 U.S. at 822. 14 Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986). 6 factors,” including “the importance of the witness’ testimony in the prosecution’s case, whether the testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on material points, the extent of cross- examination otherwise permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the prosecution’s case.”15 Other eyewitness testimony corroborated Ball’s statement. Additionally, and most importantly, Wesley confessed to killing Brasuell as Ball had described. Under the standard articulated in Van Arsdall and in light of this other evidence, the admission of Ball’s statement, while erroneous, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. III. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Wesley’s conviction for capital murder and sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Although the admission of Ball’s statement through Plonski violated Wesley’s right to confront the witnesses against him, this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Affirmed. Special Justice CORY COX joins. WEBB, J., not participating. Mylissia M. Bacon, for appellant. Tim Griffin, Att’y Gen., by: A. Evangeline Bacon, Ass’t Att’y Gen., for appellee. 15 Id. 7