Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02745/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02745-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

ELTON JOHN MYATT, ) 

) 

Petitioner-Appellant, ) 

) 

FILED 

Uoired Scaces Court of Appeals 

·renth Cirr.:uit 

ruG ·11990 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. ) No. 87-2745 

) 

ROBERT HANNIGAN and THE ) 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE ) 

OF KANSAS, ) 

) 

Respondents-Appellees. ) 

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the District of Kansas 

(D.C. No. 86-3168) 

David J. Gottlieb, Director of the Kansas Defender Project, 

Lawrence, Kansas, for Petitioner-Appellant. 

Gregory G. Hough, Assistant Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas, for 

Respondents-Appellees. 

Before SEYMOUR, MOORE, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

EBEL, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 87-2745 Document: 01019371196 Date Filed: 08/01/1990 Page: 1 
... 

Petitioner-appellant Elton John Myatt appeals from a 

dismissal by the United States District Court for the District of 

Kansas of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 

u.s.c. S 2254. There are two issues raised in this appeal: 

(1) whether Kansas' child hearsay statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-

460(dd), on its face violates the Sixth Amendment right of 

confrontation; and (2) whether, even if Kansas' child hearsay 

statute is constitutional on its face, the admission of hearsay 

statements in this case violated appellant's right of 

confrontation. 

Appellant was convicted after a bench trial of committing 

indecent liberties with a minor. The facts leading to his 

conviction are as follows. Appellant was dating the victim's 

mother since January 1981. Although he did not live with the 

mother, he did have sexual relations with her and occasionally 

would spend the night at her home. The mother left her three 

children alone with appellant at various times. 

In mid-September 1982, both appellant and the mother 

contracted gonorrhea. In the first week of October 1982, the 

mother's six-year-old daughter was diagnosed as having gonorrhea. 

When questioned, the girl told a caseworker and a police 

investigator that appellant had touched her in the vaginal area. 

Appellant was charged with committing indecent liberties with 

a minor. After waiving his right to a jury, he received a bench 

trial. Both the state and appellant stipulated that the child was 

"disqualified" from testifying (Tr. at 46), and she did not 

testify at trial. Instead, the trial court allowed the caseworker 

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and police investigator to testify about their conversations with 

the child pursuant to Kansas' child hearsay statute, Kan. Stat. 

Ann. § 60-460(dd). The trial court convicted appellant and 

sentenced him to fifteen years imprisonment. 

After conviction, appellant appealed to the Kansas Court of 

Appeals, raising eight issues, including the constitutionality of 

the Kansas child hearsay statute. The court of appeals dismissed 

his claims in an unpublished opinion. Appellant then appealed to 

the Kansas Supreme Court. That court held, among other things, 

that Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-460(dd) is constitutional on its face 

and that it was properly applied by the trial court in the instant 

case. State v. Myatt, 237 Kan. 17, 697 P.2d 836 (1985). 

Appellant then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the 

United States District Court for the District of Kansas, arguing 

that the child hearsay statute is unconstitutional on its face and 

that, even if it is not unconstitutional, the introduction of the 

hearsay statements in this case violated appellant's Sixth 

Amendment right of confrontation. The district court, without 

holding a hearing, agreed with the Kansas Supreme Court that the 

hearsay statute is constitutional on its face and that appellant's 

Sixth Amendment right of confrontation had not been infringed. We 

affirm. 

I. 

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides that 

"[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right 

... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." This 

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right of confrontation has been applied to the states through the 

Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 u.s. 400, 403 (1965). 

The right of confrontation is deep-rooted in Western legal 

culture. Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012, 1015-16 (1988). By allowing 

criminal defendants to cross-examine witnesses and by allowing the 

trier of fact to evaluate the credibility of those witnesses, the 

right of confrontation promotes both the reliability of criminal 

trials and the perception of fairness in our criminal justice 

system. Lee v. Illinois, 476 u.s. 530, 540 (1986). Therefore, 

the Supreme Court consistently has recognized that "the right of 

confrontation and cross-examination is an essential and 

fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this 

country's constitutional goal." Pointer, 380 U.S. at 405. 

If the Confrontation Clause were taken literally, it might 

mean that no out-of-court statements could be admitted against a 

criminal defendant unless the defendant had the opportunity to 

cross-examine the declarant. However, the right of confrontation 

in the Sixth Amendment has never been regarded as absolute. It 

has long been recognized that in certain cases the right must give 

way to competing interests in the criminal trial process. See, 

~, Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 243 (1895) ("But 

general rules of law of this kind, however beneficent in their 

operation and valuable to the accused, must occasionally give way 

to considerations of public policy and the necessities of the 

case."); see also McCormick on Evidence§ 252 at 750-51 (3d ed. 

1984). Thus, the Supreme Court has "attempted to harmonize the 

goal of the Clause -- placing limits on the kind of evidence that 

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may be received against a defendant -- with a societal interest in 

accurate factfinding, which may require consideration of out-ofcourt statements." Bourjaily v. United States, 483 u.s. 171, 182 

(1987). 

In an attempt to reconcile those competing interests, the 

Supreme Court has held that in order for the prosecution to 

introduce out-of-court statements by witnesses who do not testify 

at trial, the prosecution generally will be required to establish 

both "unavailability" of the declarant and that the hearsay 

evidence bears "adequate indicia of reliability." Ohio v. 

Roberts, 448 u.s. 56, 65-66 (1980). Because hearsay rules and the 

Confrontation Clause are designed to protect similar values and 

stem from the same roots, reliability will be presumed where "the 

evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception." Id. 

Otherwise, the prosecution must show that the hearsay evidence 

bears "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness." Id. 

II. 

Appellant contends that Kansas' child hearsay statute is 

unconstitutional on its face because it fails to require "adequate 

indicia of reliability" or "particularized guarantees of 

trustworthiness" as mandated by the Supreme Court in Roberts. 1 We 

disagree. 

1 Here, both sides agree that Kansas' child hearsay exception is 

not "firmly rooted" and hence is not presumptively reliable under 

Roberts. 

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Kansas' child hearsay statute, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-460(dd), 

provides in pertinent part: 

Evidence of a statement which is made other than by a 

witness while testifying at the hearing, offered to 

prove the truth of the matter stated, is hearsay 

evidence and inadmissible except: 

(dd) Actions involving children. In a criminal 

proceeding . . . a statement made by a child, to prove 

the crime ... , if: 

(1) The child is alleged to be a victim of the 

crime ... ; and 

(2) the trial judge finds, after a hearing on the 

matter, that the child is disqualified or unavailable as 

a witness, the statement is apparently reliable and the 

child was not induced to make the statement falsely by 

use of threats or promises. 

Appellant argues that the phrase "apparently reliable" in the 

statute is not the same as "adequate indicia of reliability" or 

"particularized guarantees of trustworthiness" as required by 

Roberts. Any doubt about the meaning of the words "apparently 

reliable" has been resolved by the Kansas Supreme Court. That 

court held, in appellant's direct appeal of his conviction, that 

those words incorporate the Roberts requirements: 

[T]he [Kansas] legislature intended to incorporate the 

Roberts standard for admissibility into this statute 

[Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-460(dd)]. Through the use of the 

words "apparently reliable" it is implicit that the 

judge must find the evidence contains "particularized 

guarantees of trustworthiness" since the new statute is 

not a "firmly rooted hearsay exception." 

State v. Myatt, 237 Kan. 17, __ , 697 P.2d 836, 843 (1985). We are 

bound to accept that interpretation of Kansas law. See Ewing v. 

Winans, 749 F.2d 607, 609 (lOth Cir. 1984) ("Federal courts must 

accept a state court's interpretation and application of its 

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constitution and laws unless they are inconsistent with 

fundamental principles of liberty and justice."), limited by, 

Martinez v. Sullivan, 881 F.2d 921, 926 n.2 (lOth Cir. 1989) 

(modifies Ewing to the extent that it is inconsistent with holding 

that determinations of unavailability and good faith effort to 

obtain a witness are mixed questions reviewed de novo). 

Appellant next argues that the Kansas Supreme Court has 

rendered the child hearsay statute unconstitutional by 

interpreting it to include a presumption that child hearsay 

statements are reliable. Appellant refers to a statement by the 

Kansas Supreme Court that "[i]t is also beginning to be recognized 

that a child's statements about sexual abuse are inherently 

reliable." Myatt, 237 Kan. at_, 697 P.2d at 841. We do not 

read that Kansas Supreme Court's language as creating a 

presumption of reliability. On the contrary, the Kansas Supreme 

Court went on in its opinion to state specifically that "[t]he 

determination of reliability and trustworthiness must be made on a 

case-by-case basis." Id. at _, 697 P.2d at 843. Thus, the 

Kansas Supreme Court properly required that child hearsay 

statements possess adequate indicia of reliability, which must be 

established on a case-by-case basis, before those statements may 

be admitted under Kansas' child hearsay statute. 

Appellant also challenges the constitutionality of Kansas' 

child hearsay statute based upon the failure of the statute to 

require corroborating evidence in order for child hearsay 

statements in sex abuse cases to be deemed reliable. We reject 

this challenge because the United States Supreme Court recently 

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has held that, for purposes of the Confrontation Clause, the 

existence of corroborating evidence is not to be considered in 

determining the reliability of proffered hearsay. See Idaho v. 

Wright, 58 U.S.L.W. 5036, 5040 (June 27, 1990) ("hearsay evidence 

used to convict a defendant must possess indicia of reliability by 

virtue of its inherent trustworthiness, not by reference to other 

evidence at trial"). 

Appellant also argues that Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-460(dd) is 

unconstitutional because it allows hearsay statements of an 

incompetent witness to be admitted into evidence. The statute 

requires that the child be "disqualified or unavailable as a 

witness" as a condition to admitting the child's hearsay 

statements. In Wright, the Supreme Court rejected the argument 

that the Confrontation Clause "erect(s] a per se rule barring the 

admission of prior statements of a declarant who is unable to 

communicate to the jury at the time of trial." Wright, 58 

U.S.L.W. at 5041. Although the child's inability to testify may 

be relevant to whether the hearsay statements are reliable, in 

each case the reliability of the statements must be determined 

from the totality of the circumstances surrounding the statements. 

Id. at 5040-41. Therefore, although Kansas' child hearsay statute 

permits the admission of hearsay statements of a child unable to 

testify at trial, the statute is not unconstitutional on its face. 

Here, before trial both sides stipulated that the child was 

"disqualified" from testifying pursuant to Kan. Stat. Ann. § 60-

417 (1983), which provides in pertinent part: 

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A person is disqualified to be a witness if the judge 

finds that (a) the proposed witness is incapable of 

expressing himself or herself concerning the matter so 

as to be understood by the judge and jury either 

directly or through interpretation by one who can 

understand him or her, or (b) the proposed witness is 

incapable of understanding the duty of a witness to tell 

the truth. 

The record does not show whether the child was disqualified under 

subsection (a) or subsection (b). We are troubled by the 

possibility that the child was disqualified pursuant to subsection 

(b) because the inability of the child to understand her duty to 

tell the truth would severely tend to undermine the reliability of 

her statements. However, in this case the child's statements were 

not introduced until after a psychiatrist who had interviewed the 

child four times testified that the child knew the difference 

between right and wrong and that her statements were reliable. 

(Tr. at 49-51.) The psychiatrist's testimony thus counteracts the 

possible detrimental effect of the statutory disqualification in 

this case, and the record therefore supports disqualification 

pursuant to subsection (a). 

III. 

Appellant argues that even if the child hearsay statute is 

constitutional on its face, the hearsay statements admitted 

against him in this case violated his right of confrontation 

because they were not reliable. We disagree. 

In evaluating the reliability of the hearsay statements, we 

presume that the factual findings of the Kansas Supreme Court are 

correct. 28 u.s.c. § 2254(d); Sumner v. Mata, 449 u.s. 539, 546-

47 (1981). However, the conclusion by that court that the hearsay 

statements are reliable is a mixed question of law and fact, and 

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hence is reviewed de DQYQ· See Haggins v. Warden, Fort Pillow 

State Farm, 715 F.2d 1050, 1055 (6th Cir. 1983) ("whether the 

admission of the child's statements violated the confrontation 

clause ... [is a] determination[] of law, subject to collateral 

review by the federal courts"), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1071 

(1984); cf. Sumner v. Mata II, 455 U.S. 591, 597 (1982) (the 

ultimate question of the constitutionality of identification 

procedures is not subject to a presumption of correctness under 

§ 2254); Martinez v. Sullivan, 881 F.2d 921, 925-26 (lOth Cir. 

1989) (determination of unavailability of a witness is a mixed 

question of fact and law, reviewed de novo), cert. denied 110 S. 

Ct . 7 4 0 ( 19 9 0 ) . 

At trial, the judge held a hearing to determine whether the 

child's hearsay statements were sufficiently reliable under 

Kansas' child hearsay statute and under Roberts. The judge 

concluded that the statements were reliable, based on the 

testimony of a psychiatrist who specialized in child psychiatry. 

(Tr. at 72-73.) The psychiatrist had interviewed the child four 

times and had used anatomically correct dolls to help the child 

explain what had happened. (Tr. at 48, 51.) He also had talked 

with the child's foster parents and teacher. (Tr. at 50.) The 

psychiatrist testified that, in his opinion, the child was capable 

of accurately telling what happened, she knew the difference 

between right and wrong, her statements were reliable, and she had 

not been induced to make a false statement. (Tr. at 49-51.) 

Although there were some inconsistencies in the child's story, we 

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\ 

do not find that they rise to the level of negating the finding of 

reliability of the child's testimony. 2 

Considering the record as a whole and the careful procedures 

followed by the trial court in conducting an evidentiary review of 

the reliability and trustworthiness of the child's hearsay 

statements before it was received into evidence, we conclude that 

here there were "adequate indicia of reliability" and sufficient 

"particularized guarantees of trustworthiness" to satisfy the 

Sixth Amendment requirements for introduction of such evidence as 

interpreted by Ohio v. Roberts. 

The judgment of the district court dismissing appellant's 

petition for a writ of habeas corpus is AFFIRMED. 

2 The inconsistencies relied upon by appellant focus 

particularly upon uncertainties as to when the indecent liberties 

occurred, statements that the child allegedly made to family 

members that appellant did not commit the offense, and statements 

that appellant was never completely alone with the child. 

However, the evidence did show that appellant was with the child 

in the absence of other adults. Although her two siblings may 

have been with the victim, they were both younger than she was and 

hence the presence of the siblings could not have been expected to 

provide any deterrence. The uncertainty of the date of the 

incident does not sufficiently impair trustworthiness to make her 

testimony inadmissible. As the Kansas Supreme Court stated, "It 

seems reasonable that, although a young child may not clearly 

comprehend the meaning of dates and time, the child will be well 

aware of, and remember, sexual acts inflicted upon her person." 

Myatt, 237 Kan. at __ , 697 P.2d at 844; see also, ~, United 

States v. Dorian, 803 F.2d 1439, 1444-45 (8th Cir. 1986) (the 

contradictions in the child's statements did not render them 

untrustworthy). And, the child's recanting of her statement to 

family members is not atypical in sex abuse cases. See Note, The 

Testimony of Child Victims in Sex Abuse Prosecutions: Two 

Legislative Innovations, 98 Harv. L. Rev. 806, 807 (1985). 

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