Autopsy report from ME indicted for making false statements under oath can't come into evidence unless she testifies, except it did

Via TDCAA, somehow I'd missed that a now-former assistant medical examiner in Harris County, Dr. Luisa Florez, had been indicted for making false statements under oath, apparently related to a loan application. (See coverage here.) Her husband has since been convicted and sent to federal prison "for conspiring to obtain approximately $1 million in disaster relief funds by fraudulent means." Florez's case has not yet reached its denouement.

The issue arose because a Harris County district judge allowed a report from an autopsy she performed to be entered into evidence in a murder trial (Lee v. State). "The jury was not made aware of the indictment, however, because the State chose to have another medical examiner, Dr. Robert Milton, relay the findings of Dr. Florez‘s report." The Fourteenth Court of Appeals ruled this was a Confrontation Clause violation, holding "that autopsy reports are testimonial and the defendant must be allowed to cross-examine the medical examiner who created them." (Read the opinion.)

However, the court held that the error was "harmless" because "ample additional evidence established appellant‘s guilt" and Dr. Milton's testimony "was mostly undisputed." Further, "although the autopsy report might have added credence to Dr. Milton‘s testimony that wounds caused by appellant‘s rifle, standing alone, could have caused complainant‘s death, that determination was not important to appellant‘s liability as a party." Though IANAL, their conclusion seems a bit odd to me since Dr. Milton's conclusions, which the court said were allowable, were based on Dr. Florez's report. But I'm never surprised when a Texas appellate court overlooks constitutional errors as "harmless" to uphold a conviction.

Who knows how many autopsies Dr. Florez performed? In the future, at least within the jurisdiction of the 14th Court of Appeals, her reports can't come into evidence unless the state puts her on the stand to testify, which given her indictment for making false statements under oath seems unlikely, at best. According to TDCAA's case summary, "Take from this case the lesson that maybe the State can get another expert to present testimony, but that will not allow bootstrapping a report otherwise inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause."