Source: http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/legal/l1970/Green.htm
Timestamp: 2017-03-26 17:04:53
Document Index: 478384820

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 224', '§ 11532', '§ 1235', '§ 1364', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 770', '§ 1235', '§ 1018', '§ 1018', '§\n39', '§ 1018', '§ 1364', '§ 1367', '§ 1420', '§ 1408', '§ 1043', '§ 1235', '§ 1235', '§ 1', '§ 1397', '§ 1397', '§ 1397', '§ 2254', '§ 13', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 10', '§\n10', '§ 1367', '§ 224', '§ 6']

California v. Green, US Supreme Court, 1970
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 387 1970.SCT.2290 , 399 U.S. 149, 90 S. Ct. 1930, 26 L. Ed. 2d 489 June 23, 1970 CALIFORNIA v. GREEN CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA. William E. James, Assistant Attorney General of California, argued the cause for
petitioner. With him on the briefs was Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General. E. Barrett Prettyman, Jr., by appointment of the Court, 396 U.s. 1048, argued the cause
and filed a brief for respondent. Solicitor General Griswold argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae
urging reversal. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Wilson, Peter L.
Strauss, Beatrice Rosenberg, and Roger A. Pauley. The opinion of the court was delivered by: White Respondent was convicted of furnishing marihuana to a minor in violation of California
law, chiefly on the basis of evidence consisting of prior inconsistent statements made by
the minor (Porter): (1) at respondent's preliminary hearing and (2) to a police officer.
These statements were admitted under California Evidence Code § 1235 to prove the truth
of the matters asserted therein. The District Court of Appeal reversed. The California
Supreme Court affirmed, and held § 1235 unconstitutional insofar as it permitted the
substantive use of a witness' prior inconsistent statements even though such statements
were subject to cross-examination at a prior hearing. Held : 1. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, as made applicable to the States by
the Fourteenth Amendment, is not violated by admitting a declarant's out-of-court
statements as long as he is testifying as a witness at trial and is subject to full
cross-examination. The purposes of the Amendment are satisfied at the time of trial, even
if not before, since the witness is under oath, is subject to cross-examination, and his
demeanor can be observed by the trier of fact. Pp. 153-164. 2. Even in the absence of an opportunity for full cross-examination at trial, the
admission into evidence of the preliminary hearing testimony would not violate the
Constitution. For the preliminary hearing in this case (where Porter was under oath, and
where respondent was represented by counsel and had full opportunity for
cross-examination) was not significantly different from an actual trial as far as the
purposes of the Confrontation Clause are concerned, and it has long been held that
admitting the prior trial testimony of an unavailable witness does not violate that
clause. A different result should not follow where, as in this case, the witness was
actually produced. Pp. 165-168. 3. The question whether Porter's claimed lapse of memory at the trial about important
events described in his earlier statement to the officer so affected respondent's right to
cross-examine as to make a critical difference in the application of the Confrontation
Clause is an issue that should first be resolved by the state court. Pp. 168-170. MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court. Section 1235 of the California Evidence Code, effective as of January 1, 1967, provides
that "evidence of a statement made by a witness is not made inadmissible by the
hearsay rule if the statement is inconsistent with his testimony at the hearing and is
offered in compliance with Section 770." *footnote 1 In People v. Johnson, 68 Cal. 2d
646, 441 P. 2d 111 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1051 (1969), the California Supreme
Court held that prior statements of a witness that were not subject to cross-examination
when originally made, could not be introduced under this section to prove the charges
against a defendant without violating the defendant's right of confrontation guaranteed by
the Sixth Amendment and made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the
case now before us the California Supreme Court applied the same ban to a prior statement
of a witness made at a preliminary hearing, under oath and subject to full
cross-examination by an adequately counseled defendant. We cannot agree with the
California court for two reasons, one of which involves rejection of the holding in People
v. Johnson. I In January 1967, one Melvin Porter, a 16-year-old minor, was arrested for selling
marihuana to an undercover police officer. Four days after his arrest, while in the
custody of juvenile authorities, Porter named respondent Green as his supplier. As
recounted later by one Officer Wade, Porter claimed that Green had called him earlier that
month, had asked him to sell some "stuff" or "grass," and had that
same afternoon personally delivered a shopping bag containing 29 "baggies" of
marihuana. It was from this supply that Porter had made his sale to the undercover
officer. A week later, Porter testified at respondent's preliminary hearing. He again
named respondent as his supplier, although he now claimed that instead of personally
delivering the marihuana, Green had showed him where to pick up the shopping bag, hidden
in the bushes at Green's parents' house. Porter's story at the preliminary hearing was
subjected to extensive cross-examination by respondent's counsel -- the same counsel who
represented respondent at his subsequent trial. At the conclusion of the hearing,
respondent was charged with furnishing marihuana to a minor in violation of California
law. Respondent's trial took place some two months later before a court sitting without a
jury. The State's chief witness was again young Porter. But this time Porter, in the words
of the California Supreme Court, proved to be "markedly evasive and uncooperative on
the stand." People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 657, 451 P. 2d 422, 423 (1969). He
testified that respondent had called him in January 1967, and asked him to sell some
unidentified "stuff." He admitted obtaining shortly thereafter 29 plastic
"baggies" of marihuana, some of which he sold. But when pressed as to whether
respondent had been his supplier, Porter claimed that he was uncertain how he obtained the
marihuana, primarily because he was at the time on "acid" (LSD), which he had
taken 20 minutes before respondent phoned. Porter claimed that he was unable to remember
the events that followed the phone call, and that the drugs he had taken prevented his
distinguishing fact from fantasy. See, e. g., App. 7-11, 24-25. At various points during Porter's direct examination, the prosecutor read excerpts from
Porter's preliminary hearing testimony. This evidence was admitted under § 1235 for the
truth of the matter contained therein. With his memory "refreshed" by his
preliminary hearing testimony, Porter "guessed" that he had indeed obtained the
marihuana from the backyard of respondent's parents' home, and had given the money from
its sale to respondent. On cross-examination, however, Porter indicated that it was his
memory of the preliminary testimony which was "mostly" refreshed, rather than
his memory of the events themselves, and he was still unsure of the actual episode. See
App. 25. Later in the trial, Officer Wade testified, relating Porter's earlier statement
that respondent had personally delivered the marihuana. This statement was also admitted
as substantive evidence. Porter admitted making the statement, App. 59, and insisted that
he had been telling the truth as he then believed it both to Officer Wade and at the
preliminary hearing; but he insisted that he was also telling the truth now in claiming
inability to remember the actual events. Respondent was convicted. The District Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the use
of Porter's prior statements for the truth of the matter asserted therein, denied
respondent his right of confrontation under the California Supreme Court's recent decision
in People v. Johnson, supra. The California Supreme Court affirmed, finding itself
"impelled" by recent decisions of this Court to hold § 1235 unconstitutional
insofar as it permitted the substantive use of prior inconsistent statements of a witness,
even though the statements were subject to cross-examination at a prior hearing. We
granted the State's petition for certiorari, 396 U.S. 1001 (1970). II The California Supreme Court construed the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment
to require the exclusion of Porter's prior testimony offered in evidence to prove the
State's case against Green because, in the court's view, neither the right to
cross-examine Porter at the trial concerning his current and prior testimony, nor the
opportunity to cross-examine Porter at the preliminary hearing satisfied the commands of
the Confrontation Clause. We think the California court was wrong on both counts. Positing that this case posed an instance of a witness who gave trial testimony
inconsistent with his prior, out-of-court statements, *footnote 2 the California court, on
the authority of its decision in People v. Johnson, supra, held that belated
cross-examination before the trial court, "is not an adequate substitute for the
right to cross-examination contemporaneous with the original testimony before a different
tribunal." People v. Green, supra, at 659, 451 P. 2d, at 425. We disagree. Section 1235 of the California Evidence Code represents a considered choice by the
California Legislature *footnote 3 between two opposing positions concerning the extent to
which a witness' prior statements may be introduced at trial without violating hearsay
rules of evidence. The orthodox view, adopted in most jurisdictions, *footnote 4 has been
that the out-of-court statements are inadmissible for the usual reasons that have led to
the exclusion of hearsay statements: the statement may not have been made under oath; the
declarant may not have been subjected to cross-examination when he made the statement; and
the jury cannot observe the declarant's demeanor at the time he made the statement.
Accordingly, under this view, the statement may not be offered to show the truth of the
matters asserted therein, but can be introduced under appropriate limiting instructions to
impeach the credibility of the witness who has changed his story at trial. In contrast, the minority view adopted in some jurisdictions *footnote 5 and supported
by most legal commentators and by recent proposals to codify the law of evidence *footnote
6 would permit the substantive use of prior inconsistent statements on the theory that the
usual dangers of hearsay are largely nonexistent where the witness testifies at trial.
"The whole purpose of the Hearsay rule has been already satisfied the witness is
present and subject to cross-examination there is ample opportunity to test him as to the
basis for his former statement." *footnote 7 Our task in this case is not to decide which of these positions, purely as a matter of
the law of evidence, is the sounder. The issue before us is the considerably narrower one
of whether a defendant's constitutional right "to be confronted with the witnesses
against him" is necessarily inconsistent with a State's decision to change its
hearsay rules to reflect the minority view described above. While it may readily be
conceded that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect
similar values, it is quite a different thing to suggest that the overlap is complete and
that the Confrontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of
hearsay and their exceptions as they existed historically at common law. Our decisions
have never established such a congruence; indeed, we have more than once found a violation
of confrontation values even though the statements in issue were admitted under an
arguably recognized hearsay exception. See Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719 (1968); Pointer v.
Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965). The converse is equally true: merely because evidence is
admitted in violation of a long-established hearsay rule does not lead to the automatic
conclusion that confrontation rights have been denied. *footnote 8 Given the similarity of the values protected, however, the modification of a State's
hearsay rules to create new exceptions for the admission of evidence against a defendant,
will often raise questions of compatibility with the defendant's constitutional right to
confrontation. Such questions require attention to the reasons for, and the basic scope
of, the protections offered by the Confrontation Clause. The origin and development of the hearsay rules and of the Confrontation Clause have
been traced by others and need not be recounted in detail here. *footnote 9 It is
sufficient to note that the particular vice that gave impetus to the confrontation claim
was the practice of trying defendants on "evidence" which consisted solely of ex
parte affidavits or depositions secured by the examining magistrates, thus denying the
defendant the opportunity to challenge his accuser in a face-to-face encounter in front of
the trier of fact. Prosecuting attorneys "would frequently allege matters which the
prisoner denied and called upon them to prove. The proof was usually given by reading
depositions, confessions of accomplices, letters, and the like; and this occasioned
frequent demands by the prisoner to have his 'accusers,' i. e. the witnesses against him,
brought before him face to face . . . ." *footnote 10 But objections occasioned by this practice appear primarily to have been aimed at the
failure to call the witness to confront personally the defendant at his trial. So far as
appears, in claiming confrontation rights no objection was made against receiving a
witness' out-of-court depositions or statements, so long as the witness was present at
trial to repeat his story and to explain or repudiate any conflicting prior stories before
the trier of fact. Our own decisions seem to have recognized at an early date that it is this literal
right to "confront" the witness at the time of trial that forms the core of the
values furthered by the Confrontation Clause: "The primary object of the constitutional provision in question was to prevent
depositions or ex parte affidavits, such as were sometimes admitted in civil cases, being
used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the
witness in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection and
sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with
the jury in order that they may look at him, and The Honorable Judge by his demeanor upon
belief." Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 242-243 (1895). Viewed historically, then, there is good reason to conclude that the Confrontation
Clause is not violated by admitting a declarant's out-of-court statements, as long as the
declarant is testifying as a witness and subject to full and effective cross-examination. This conclusion is supported by comparing the purposes of confrontation with the
alleged dangers in admitting an out-of-court statement. Confrontation: (1) insures that
the witness will give his statements under oath -- thus impressing him with the
seriousness of the matter and guarding against the lie by the possibility of a penalty for
perjury; (2) forces the witness to submit to cross-examination, the "greatest legal
engine ever invented for the discovery of truth"; *footnote 11 (3) permits the jury
that is to decide the defendant's fate to observe the demeanor of the witness in making
his statement, thus aiding the jury in assessing his credibility. It is, of course, true that the out-of-court statement may have been made under
circumstances subject to none of these protections. But if the declarant is present and
testifying at trial, the out-of-court statement for all practical purposes regains most of
the lost protections. If the witness admits the prior statement is his, or if there is
other evidence to show the statement is his, the danger of faulty reproduction is
negligible and the jury can be confident that it has before it two conflicting statements
by the same witness. Thus, as far as the oath is concerned, the witness must now affirm,
deny, or qualify the truth of the prior statement under the penalty of perjury; indeed,
the very fact that the prior statement was not given under a similar circumstance may
become the witness' explanation for its inaccuracy -- an explanation a jury may be
expected to understand and take into account in deciding which, if either, of the
statements represents the truth. Second, the inability to cross-examine the witness at the time he made his prior
statement cannot easily be shown to be of crucial significance as long as the defendant is
assured of full and effective cross-examination at the time of trial. The most successful
cross-examination at the time the prior statement was made could hardly hope to accomplish
more than has already been accomplished by the fact that the witness is now telling a
different, inconsistent story, and -- in this case -- one that is favorable to the
defendant. We cannot share the California Supreme Court's view that belated
cross-examination can never serve as a constitutionally adequate substitute for
cross-examination contemporaneous with the original statement. The main danger in
substituting subsequent for timely cross-examination seems to lie in the possibility that
the witness' "false testimony is apt to harden and become unyielding to the blows of
truth in proportion as the witness has opportunity for reconsideration and influence by
the suggestions of others, whose interest may be, and often is, to maintain falsehood
rather than truth." State v. Saporen, 205 Minn. 358, 362, 285 N. W. 898, 901 (1939).
That danger, however, disappears when the witness has changed his testimony so that, far
from "hardening," his prior statement has softened to the point where he now
repudiates it. *footnote 12 The defendant's task in cross-examination is, of course, no longer identical to the
task that he would have faced if the witness had not changed his story and hence had to be
examined as a "hostile" witness giving evidence for the prosecution. This
difference, however, far from lessening, may actually enhance the defendant's ability to
attack the prior statement. For the witness, favorable to the defendant, should be more
than willing to give the usual suggested explanations for the inaccuracy of his prior
statement, such as faulty perception or undue haste in recounting the event. Under such
circumstances, the defendant is not likely to be hampered in effectively attacking the
prior statement, solely because his attack comes later in time. Similar reasons lead us to discount as a constitutional matter the fact that the jury
at trial is foreclosed from viewing the declarant's demeanor when he first made his
out-of-court statement. The witness who now relates a different story about the events in
question must necessarily assume a position as to the truth value of his prior statement,
thus giving the jury a chance to observe and evaluate his demeanor as he either disavows
or qualifies his earlier statement. The jury is alerted by the inconsistency in the
stories, and its attention is sharply focused on determining either that one of the
stories reflects the truth or that the witness who has apparently lied once, is simply too
lacking in credibility to warrant its believing either story. The defendant's
confrontation rights are not violated, even though some demeanor evidence that would have
been relevant in resolving this credibility issue is forever lost. It may be true that a jury would be in a better position to evaluate the truth of the
prior statement if it could somehow be whisked magically back in time to witness a
gruelling cross-examination of the declarant as he first gives his statement. But the
question as we see it must be not whether one can somehow imagine the jury in "a
better position," but whether subsequent cross-examination at the defendant's trial
will still afford the trier of fact a satisfactory basis for evaluating the truth of the
prior statement. On that issue, neither evidence *footnote 13 nor reason convinces us that
contemporaneous cross-examination before the ultimate trier of fact is so much more
effective than subsequent examination that it must be made the touchstone of the
Confrontation Clause. Finally, we note that none of our decisions interpreting the Confrontation Clause
requires excluding the out-of-court statements of a witness who is available and
testifying at trial. The concern of most of our cases has been focused on precisely the
opposite situation -- situations where statements have been admitted in the absence of the
declarant and without any chance to cross-examine him at trial. These situations have
arisen through application of a number of traditional "exceptions" to the
hearsay rule, which permit the introduction of evidence despite the absence of the
declarant usually on the theory that the evidence possesses other indicia of
"reliability" and is incapable of being admitted, despite good-faith efforts of
the State, in any way that will secure confrontation with the declarant. *footnote 14 Such
exceptions, dispensing altogether with the literal right to "confrontation" and
cross-examination, have been subjected on several occasions to careful scrutiny by this
Court. In Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965), for example, the State introduced at
defendant's trial the transcript of a crucial witness' testimony from a prior preliminary
hearing. The witness himself, one Phillips, had left the jurisdiction and did not appear
at trial. "Because the transcript of Phillips' statement offered against petitioner
at his trial had not been taken at a time and under circumstances affording petitioner
through counsel an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Phillips," 380 U.S., at 407,
we held that its introduction violated the defendant's confrontation rights. Similarly, in
Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719 (1968), the State introduced the preliminary hearing
testimony of an absent witness, incarcerated in a federal prison, under an
"unavailability" exception to its hearsay rules. We held that that exception
would not justify the denial of confrontation where the State had not made a good-faith
effort to obtain the presence of the allegedly "unavailable" witness. We have no occasion in the present case to map out a theory of the Confrontation Clause
that would determine the validity of all such hearsay "exceptions" permitting
the introduction of an absent declarant's statements. For where the declarant is not
absent, but is present to testify and to submit to cross-examination, our cases, if
anything, support the conclusion that the admission of his out-of-court statements does
not create a confrontation problem. Thus, in Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415 (1965),
decided on the same day as Pointer, we reversed a conviction in which the prosecution read
into the record an alleged confession of the defendant's supposed accomplice, Loyd, who
refused to testify on self-incrimination grounds. The confrontation problem arose
precisely because Loyd could not be cross-examined as to his prior statement; had such
cross-examination taken place, the opinion strongly suggests that the confrontation
problem would have been nonexistent: "In the circumstances of this case, petitioner's inability to cross-examine Loyd
as to the alleged confession plainly denied him the right of cross-examination secured by
the Confrontation Clause. . . . Loyd could not be cross-examined on a statement imputed to
but not admitted by him. . . . Since [the State's] evidence tended to show only that Loyd
made the confession, cross-examination . . . as to its genuineness could not substitute
for cross-examination of Loyd to test the truth of the statement itself. . . . "Hence, effective confrontation of Loyd was possible only if Loyd affirmed the
statement as his." 380 U.S., at 419-420. Again, in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), the Court found a violation of
confrontation rights in the admission of a codefendant's confession, implicating Bruton,
where the co-defendant did not take the stand. The Court again emphasized that the error
arose because the declarant "does not testify and cannot be tested by
cross-examination," 391 U.S., at 136, suggesting that no confrontation problem would
have existed if Bruton had been able to cross-examine his co-defendant. *footnote 15 Cf.
Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 252-253 (1969). Indeed, Bruton 's refusal to
regard limiting instructions as capable of curing the error, suggests that there is little
difference as far as the Constitution is concerned between permitting prior inconsistent
statements to be used only for impeachment purposes, and permitting them to be used for
substantive purposes as well. We find nothing, then, in either the history or the purposes of the Confrontation
Clause, or in the prior decisions of this Court, that compels the conclusion reached by
the California Supreme Court concerning the validity of California's § 1235. Contrary to
the judgement of that court, the Confrontation Clause does not require excluding from
evidence the prior statements of a witness who concedes making the statements, and who may
be asked to defend or otherwise explain the inconsistency between his prior and his
present version of the events in question, thus opening himself to full cross-examination
at trial as to both stories. III We also think that Porter's preliminary hearing testimony was admissible as far as the
Constitution is concerned wholly apart from the question of whether respondent had an
effective opportunity for confrontation at the subsequent trial. For Porter's statement at
the preliminary hearing had already been given under circumstances closely approximating
those that surround the typical trial. Porter was under oath; respondent was represented
by counsel -- the same counsel in fact who later represented him at the trial; respondent
had every opportunity to cross-examine Porter as to his statement; and the proceedings
were conducted before a judicial tribunal, equipped to provide a judicial record of the
hearings. Under these circumstances, Porter's statement would, we think, have been
admissible at trial even in Porter's absence if Porter had been actually unavailable,
despite good-faith efforts of the State to produce him. That being the case, we do not
think a different result should follow where the witness is actually produced. This Court long ago held that admitting the prior testimony of an unavailable witness
does not violate the Confrontation Clause. Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237 (1895).
That case involved testimony given at the defendant's first trial by a witness who had
died by the time of the second trial, but we do not find the instant preliminary hearing
significantly different from an actual trial to warrant distinguishing the two cases for
purposes of the Confrontation Clause. Indeed, we indicated as much in Pointer v. Texas,
380 U.S. 400, 407 (1965), where we noted that "the case before us would be quite a
different one had Phillips' statement been taken at a full-fledged hearing at which
petitioner had been represented by counsel who had been given a complete and adequate
opportunity to cross-examine." And in Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 725-726 (1968),
although noting that the preliminary hearing is ordinarily a less searching exploration
into the merits of a case than a trial, we recognized that "there may be some
justification for holding that the opportunity for cross-examination of a witness at a
preliminary hearing satisfies the demands of the confrontation clause where the witness is
shown to be actually unavailable . . . ." In the present case respondent's counsel
does not appear to have been significantly limited in any way in the scope or nature of
his cross-examination of the witness Porter at the preliminary hearing. If Porter had died
or was otherwise unavailable, the Confrontation Clause would not have been violated by
admitting his testimony given at the preliminary hearing -- the right of cross-examination
then afforded provides substantial compliance with the purposes behind the confrontation
requirement, as long as the declarant's inability to give live testimony is in no way the
fault of the State. Compare Barber v. Page, supra, with Motes v. United States, 178 U.S.
458 (1900). But nothing in Barber v. Page or in other cases in this Court indicates that a
different result must follow where the State produces the declarant and swears him as a
witness at the trial. It may be that the rules of evidence applicable in state or federal
courts would restrict resort to prior sworn testimony where the declarant is present at
the trial. But as a constitutional matter, it is untenable to construe the Confrontation
Clause to permit the use of prior testimony to prove the State's case where the declarant
never appears, but to bar that testimony where the declarant is present at the trial,
exposed to the defendant and the trier of fact, and subject to cross-examination.
*footnote 16 As in the case where the witness is physically unproducible, the State here
has made every effort to introduce its evidence through the live testimony of the witness;
it produced Porter at trial, swore him as a witness, and tendered him for
cross-examination. Whether Porter then testified in a manner consistent or inconsistent
with his preliminary hearing testimony, claimed a loss of memory, claimed his privilege
against compulsory self-incrimination, or simply refused to answer, nothing in the
Confrontation Clause prohibited the State from also relying on his prior testimony to
prove its case against Green. *footnote 17 IV There is a narrow question lurking in this case concerning the admissibility of
Porter's statements to Officer Wade. In the typical case to which the California court
addressed itself, the witness at trial gives a version of the ultimate events different
from that given on a prior occasion. In such a case, as our holding in Part II makes
clear, we find little reason to distinguish among prior inconsistent statements on the
basis of the circumstances under which the prior statements were given. The subsequent
opportunity for cross-examination at trial with respect to both present and past versions
of the event, is adequate to make equally admissible, as far as the Confrontation Clause
is concerned, both the casual, off-hand remark to a stranger, and the carefully recorded
testimony at a prior hearing. Here, however, Porter claimed at trial that he could not
remember the events that occurred after respondent telephoned him and hence failed to give
any current version of the more important events described in his earlier statement. Whether Porter's apparent lapse of memory so affected Green's right to cross-examine as
to make a critical difference in the application of the Confrontation Clause in this case
*footnote 18 is an issue which is not ripe for decision at this juncture. The state court
did not focus on this precise question, which was irrelevant given its broader and
erroneous premise that an out-of-court statement of a witness is inadmissible as
substantive evidence, whatever the nature of the opportunity to cross-examine at the
trial. Nor has either party addressed itself to the question. Its resolution depends much
upon the unique facts in this record, and we are reluctant to proceed without the state
court's views of what the record actually discloses relevant to this particular issue.
What is more, since we hold that the admission of Porter's preliminary hearing testimony
is not barred by the Sixth Amendment despite his apparent lapse of memory, the reception
into evidence of the Porter statement to Officer Wade may pose a harmless-error question
which is more appropriately resolved by the California courts in the first instance.
Similarly, faced on remand with our decision that § 1235 is not invalid on its face, the
California Supreme Court may choose to dispose of the case on other grounds raised by
Green but not passed upon by that court; for example, because of its ruling on § 1235,
the California court deliberately put aside the issue of the sufficiency of the evidence
to sustain conviction. *footnote 19 We therefore vacate the judgement of the California Supreme Court and remand the case
to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. The Honorable Justice MARSHALL took no part in the decision of this case. The Honorable Justice BLACKMUN took no part in the consideration or decision of this
case. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring. I join fully in MR. JUSTICE WHITE's opinion for the Court. I add this comment only to
emphasize the importance of allowing the States to experiment and innovate, especially in
the area of criminal justice. If new standards and procedures are tried in one State their
success or failure will be a guide to others and to the Congress. Here, California, by statute, recently adopted a rule of evidence *footnote 1 that, as
MR. JUSTICE WHITE observes, has long been advocated by leading commentators. Two other
States, Kentucky *footnote 2 and Wisconsin, *footnote 3 have within the past year embraced
similar doctrines by judicial decisions. None of these States has yet had sufficient
experience with their innovations to determine whether or not the modification is sound,
wise, and workable. The California Supreme Court, in striking down the California statute,
seems to have done so in the mistaken belief that this Court, through the Confrontation
Clause, has imposed rigid limits on the States in this area. As the Court's opinion
indicates, that conclusion is erroneous. The California statute meets the tests of the
Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and accordingly, the wisdom of the statute is properly
left to the State of California; other jurisdictions will undoubtedly watch the experiment
with interest. The circumstances of this case demonstrate again that neither the
Constitution as originally drafted, nor any amendment, nor indeed any need, dictates that
we must have absolute uniformity in the in all the States. Federal authority was never
intended to be a "ramrod" to compel conformity to non-constitutional standards. The Honorable Justice HARLAN, concurring. The precise holding of the Court today is that the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth
Amendment does not preclude the introduction of an out-of-court declaration, taken under
oath and subject to cross-examination, to prove the truth of the matters asserted therein,
when the declarant is available as a witness at trial. With this I agree.1 The California decision that we today reverse demonstrates, however, the need to
approach this case more broadly than the Court has seen fit to do, and to confront
squarely the Confrontation Clause because the holding of the California Supreme Court is
the result of an understandable misconception, as I see things, of numerous decisions of
this Court, old and recent, that have indiscriminately equated "confrontation"
with "cross-examination."2 See Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968);
Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293 (1968); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965); Douglas v.
Alabama, 380 U.S. 415 (1965); Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1 (1966); Barber v. Page, 390
U.S. 719 (1968); Smith v. Illinois, 390 U.S. 129 (1968); Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135
(1945); Salinger v. United States, 272 U.S. 542, 548 (1926) (dictum); Reynolds v. United
States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879); Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237 (1895); Motes v. United
States, 178 U.S. 458 (1900); Kirby v. United States, 174 U.S. 47 (1899); and Dowdell v.
United States, 221 U.S. 325, 330 (1911).3 These decisions have, in my view, left ambiguous whether and to what extent the Sixth
Amendment "constitutionalizes" the hearsay rule of the common law. If "confrontation" is to be equated with the right to cross-examine, it would
transplant the ganglia of hearsay rules and their exceptions into the body of
constitutional protections. The stultifying effect of such a course upon this aspect of
the law of evidence in both state and federal systems need hardly be labored, and it is
good that the Court today, as I read its opinion, firmly eschews that course. Since, in my opinion, this state decision imperatively demonstrates the need for taking
a fresh look at the constitutional concept of "confrontation," I do not think
that stare decisis should be allowed to stand in the way, albeit the presently controlling
cases are of recent vintage. *footnote 4 As the Court's opinion suggests, the
Confrontation Clause comes to us on faded parchment. History seems to give us very little
insight into the intended scope of the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause. Commentators
have been prone to slide too easily from confrontation to cross-examination. Against this amorphous backdrop I reach two conclusions. First, the Confrontation
Clause of the Sixth Amendment reaches no farther than to require the prosecution to
produce any available witness whose declarations it seeks to use in a criminal trial.
Second, even were this conclusion deemed untenable as a matter of Sixth Amendment law, it
is surely agreeable to Fourteenth Amendment "due process," which, in my view, is
the constitutional framework in which state cases of this kind should be judged. For it
could scarcely be suggested that the Fourteenth Amendment takes under its umbrella all
common-law hearsay rules and their exceptions. I begin with the Sixth Amendment, and defer until Parts III and IV the application of
these principles to the instant case. I The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment is not one that we may assume the
Framers understood as the embodiment of settled usage at common law. Cf. my dissenting
opinion in Baldwin v. New York, ante, p. 117. Such scant evidence as can be culled from
the usual sources suggests that the Framers understood "confrontation" to be
something less than a right to exclude hearsay, and the common-law significance of the
term is so ambiguous as not to warrant the assumption that the Framers were announcing a
principle whose meaning was so well understood that this Court should be constrained to
accept those dicta in the common law that equated confrontation with cross-examination. A The text of the Sixth Amendment reads: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused
shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Simply
as a matter of English the clause may be read to confer nothing more than a right to meet
face to face all those who appear and give evidence at trial. *footnote 5 Since, however,
an extra-judicial declarant is no less a "witness," the clause is equally
susceptible of being interpreted as a blanket prohibition on the use of any hearsay
testimony. Neither of these polar readings is wholly satisfactory, still less compelling. Similar
guarantees to those of the Sixth Amendment are found in a number of the colonial
constitutions *footnote 6 and it appears to have been assumed that a confrontation
provision would be included in the Bill of Rights that was to be added to the Constitution
after ratification. *footnote 7 The Congressmen who drafted the Bill of Rights amendments
were primarily concerned with the political consequences of the new clauses and paid scant
attention to the definition and meaning of particular guarantees. Thus, the Confrontation
Clause was apparently included without debate along with the rest of the Sixth Amendment
package of rights -- to notice, counsel, and compulsory process -- all incidents of the
adversarial proceeding before a jury as evolved during the 17th and 18th centuries.
*footnote 8 If anything, the confrontation guarantee may be thought, along with the right
to compulsory process, merely to constitutionalize the right to a defense as we know it, a
right not always enjoyed by the accused, whose only defense prior to the late 17th century
was to argue that the prosecution had not completely proved its case. *footnote 9 See H.
Stephen, "The Trial of Sir Walter Raleigh," Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society 172, 184 (4th ser. Vol. 2, 1919); F. Heller, The Sixth Amendment 106-107 (1951).
Such glimmer of light as history may be thought to shed comes from the brief congressional
colloquy on the reach of the companion guarantee of compulsory process. The debate
suggests that this also broad and sweeping right was understood to be qualified by an
availability requirement. After what is now the Sixth Amendment was put on the floor, the
annals report the following: " Mr. BURKE moved to amend this proposition in such a manner as to leave it in the
power of the accused to put off the trial to the next session, provided he made it appear
to the court that the evidence of the witnesses, for whom process was granted but not
served, was material to his defence. "Mr. HARTLEY said, that in securing him the right of compulsory process, the
Government did all it could; the remainder must lie in the discretion of the court. "Mr. SMITH, of South Carolina, thought the regulation would come properly in, as
part of the Judicial system." 1 Annals of Cong. 756. (Emphasis added.) In the face of this colloquy I cannot accept Professor Heller's assertion in his book
on the Sixth Amendment attributing to the Framers a sweeping intent to prevent
"introduction of evidence given by witnesses whom the accused has not had an
opportunity to cross-examine," (supra) , at 105. So far as I have been able to
ascertain, this thesis finds support only in the assumption, traceable to Professor
Hadley, *footnote 10 that: "The right of the accused in a criminal prosecution to be
confronted with the witnesses against him did not originate with the provision of the
Sixth Amendment, but was a common law right which had gained recognition as a result of
the abuses in the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh." Id., at 104. Heller's approach,
resting as it does essentially on assertion, *footnote 11 is neither persuasive as a
historical reading, nor tenable in view of decisions by this Court that have held that the
confrontation right is not abridged by the use of hearsay that would not have satisfied
the dying-declaration exception, which was, according to Heller, the only apparent extant
exception to the hearsay exclusionary rule at the time the Sixth Amendment was ratified.
*footnote 12 Wigmore's more ambulatory view -- that the Confrontation Clause was intended to
constitutionalize the hearsay rule and all its exceptions as evolved by the courts --
rests also on assertion without citation, and attempts to settle on ground that would
appear to be equally infirm as a matter of logic. *footnote 13 Wigmore's reading would
have the practical consequence of rendering meaningless what was assuredly in some sense
meant to be an enduring guarantee. It is inconceivable that if the Framers intended to
constitutionalize a rule of hearsay they would have licensed the judiciary to read it out
of existence by creating new and unlimited exceptions. From the scant information available it may tentatively be concluded that the
Confrontation Clause was meant to constitutionalize a barrier against flagrant abuses,
trials by anonymous accusers, and absentee witnesses. That the Clause was intended to
ordain common law rules of evidence with constitutional sanction is doubtful,
notwithstanding English decisions that equate confrontation and hearsay. Rather, having
established a broad principle, it is far more likely that the Framers anticipated it would
be supplemented, as a matter of judge-made common law, by prevailing rules of evidence. B Judicial Precedent. -- The history tending to suggest that availability underlies the
confrontation right, as discussed above, is, in my view, confirmed by a circumspect
analysis of the early decisions of this Court. *footnote 14 The early decisions that consider the confrontation right at any length all involved ex
parte testimony submitted by deposition and affidavit. See Reynolds v. United States, 98
U.S. 145 (1879); Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237 (1895); Motes v. United States, 178
U.S. 458 (1900); Kirby v. United States, 174 U.S. 47 (1899). *footnote 15 It was in this
context that Mr. Justice Brown in an oft-quoted passage from Mattox v. United States set
forth as the primary objective of the constitutional guarantee, the prevention of
"depositions or ex parte affidavits, such as were sometimes admitted in civil cases,
being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of
the witness in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection
and sifting the conscience of the witness, but also of compelling him to stand face to
face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and The Honorable Judge by his
demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is
worthy of belief." 156 U.S., at 242-243. See also Dowdell v. United States, 221 U.S.
325, 330 (1911); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 107 (1934). This restricted reading of the clause cannot be defended -- taking, as it does, a
metaphysical approach, one that attempts to differentiate between affidavits, as a
substitute for first-hand testimony, and extra-judicial testimonial utterances. Indeed,
the problems with the latter are somewhat greater, and the difficulty in establishing
accurately what an extra-judicial declarant said has sometimes been considered an
infirmity of hearsay evidence. See C. McCormick, Evidence § 224, at 458 (1954).
Conceptual difficulties aside, it would seem that the early recognition of the dying
declaration as an exception to the Confrontation Clause, Mattox v. United States, supra;
Kirby v. United States, supra; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275 (1897), proceeded on the
assumption that extra-judicial testimonial declarations were also a concern of the Sixth
Amendment. *footnote 16 Notwithstanding language that appears to equate the Confrontation Clause with a right
to cross-examine, and, by implication, exclude hearsay, the early holdings and dicta can,
I think, only be harmonized by viewing the confrontation guarantee as being confined to an
availability rule, one that requires the production of a witness when he is available to
testify. This view explains the recognition of the dying declaration exception, which
dispenses with any requirement of cross-examination, and the refusal to make an exception
for prior recorded statements, taken subject to cross-examination by the accused, when the
witness is still available to testify. Compare Mattox v. United States, supra, with Motes
v. United States, supra. This rationalization of the early decisions is not only justified by logic but also
anchored in precedent. In West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258 (1904), this Court in reviewing
its early confrontation decisions emphasized availability as the thread that tied them
together. West involved the admission into evidence at trial of deposition testimony,
taken subject to cross-examination and under oath, where the deponent was
"permanently absent from the State and was a non-resident thereof, and . . . his
attendance could not be procured." Ibid. Referring, inter alia, to Motes, Mattox,
Kirby, and Reynolds, the Court concluded that "in not one of those cases was it held
that, under facts such as [were before the Court], there would have been a violation of
the Constitution in admitting the deposition in evidence." 194 U.S., at 266. That the
uppermost consideration was the availability of the witness is further underscored by the
West discussion of the common-law rule that admitted deposition testimony "upon proof
being made to the satisfaction of the court that the witness was at the time of the trial
dead, insane, too ill ever to be expected to attend the trial, or kept away by the
connivance of the defendant." 194 U.S., at 262. *footnote 17 II Recent decisions have, in my view, fallen into error on two scores. As a matter of
jurisprudence I think it unsound, for reasons I have often elaborated, see, e. g., my
dissenting opinions in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 171 (1968), and Baldwin v. New
York, ante, p. 117, to incorporate as such the guarantees of the Bill of Rights into the
Due Process Clause. While, in this particular instance, this would be of little practical
consequence if the Court had confined the Sixth Amendment guarantee to an
"availability" requirement, some decisions have, unfortunately, failed to
separate, even as a federal matter, restrictions on the abuse of hearsay testimony, part
of the due process right of a reliable and trustworthy conviction, and the right to
confront an available witness. See n. 20, (infra). By incorporating into the Fourteenth Amendment its misinterpretation of the Sixth
Amendment these decisions have in one blow created the present dilemma, that of bringing
about a potential for a constitutional rule of hearsay for both state and federal courts.
However ill-advised would be the constitutionalization of hearsay rules in federal courts,
the undesirability of imposing those brittle rules on the States is manifest. Given the
ambulatory fortunes of the hearsay doctrine, evidenced by the disagreement among scholars
over the value of excluding hearsay and the trend toward liberalization of the exceptions,
*footnote 18 it would be most unfortunate for this Court to limit the flexibility of the
States and choke experimentation in this evolving area of the law. Cf. Baldwin v. New
York, supra. *footnote 19 I adhere to what I consider to be the sound view expressed in
Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 196 (1953): "The hearsay-evidence rule, with all its
subtleties, anomalies and ramifications, not be read into the Fourteenth Amendment." What I would hold binding on the States as a matter of due process is what I also deem
the correct meaning of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause -- that a State may not
in a criminal case use hearsay when the declarant is available. See West v. Louisiana,
supra. *footnote 20 There is no reason in fairness why a State should not, as long as it
retains a traditional adversarial trial, produce a witness and afford the accused an
opportunity to cross-examine him when he can be made available. That this principle is an
essential element of fairness is attested to not only by precedent, Motes v. United
States, supra; Barber v. Page, supra; Smith v. Illinois, supra, but also by the
traditional and present exceptions to the hearsay rule which recognize greater flexibility
for receiving evidence when the witness is not available. Furthermore it accommodates the
interest of the State in making a case, yet recognizes the obligation to accord the
accused the fullest opportunity to present his best defense. *footnote 21 For those rare
cases where a conviction occurs after a trial where no credible evidence could be said to
justify the result, there remains the broader due process requirement that a conviction
cannot be founded on no evidence. See n. 20, (supra) . III Putting aside for the moment the "due process" aspect of this case, see n.
20, (supra) , it follows, in my view, that there is no "confrontation" reason
why the prosecution should not use a witness' prior inconsistent statement for the truth
of the matters therein asserted. Here the prosecution has produced its witness, Porter,
and made him available for trial confrontation. That, in my judgment, perforce satisfies
the Sixth Amendment. Indeed, notwithstanding the conventional characterization of an
available witness' prior out-of-court statements as hearsay when offered affirmatively for
the truth of the matters asserted, see Hickory v. United States, 151 U.S. 303, 309 (1894);
Southern R. Co. v. Gray, 241 U.S. 333, 337 (1916); Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945),
this is hearsay only in a technical sense since the witness may be examined at the trial
as to the circumstances of memory, opportunity to observe, meaning, and veracity. See
Comment, Model Code of Evidence, (supra) , n. 18. I think it fair to say that the fact
that the jury has no opportunity to reconstruct a witness' demeanor at the time of his
declaration, and the absence of oath are minor considerations. The fact that the witness, though physically available, cannot recall either the
underlying events that are the subject of an extra-judicial statement or previous
testimony or recollect the circumstances under which the statement was given, does not
have Sixth Amendment consequence. The prosecution has no less fulfilled its obligation
simply because a witness has a lapse of memory. The witness is, in my view, available. To
the extent that the witness is, in a practical sense, unavailable for cross-examination on
the relevant facts, for reasons stated in Part II, I think confrontation is nonetheless
satisfied. *footnote 22 IV I turn finally to the question of whether this conviction stands on such unreliable
evidence that reversal is required. Cf. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967); Thompson v.
City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199 (1960). I cannot conclude that the preliminary hearing
testimony was obtained under circumstances, as such, so unreliable that its admission
requires reversal as a matter of due process, even though it was crucial to the central
issue in the case. Compare Stovall v. Denno, supra; Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377
(1968). The statement given to Officer Wade does, however, raise such a possibility. I
accordingly would remand the case to the California Supreme Court for consideration of
that question and, whether or not it deems the second statement too unreliable to have
been admitted, to decide whether this conviction should be reversed under California law
for want of sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. See In
re Winship, 397 U.S. 358 (1970). The Honorable Justice BRENNAN, dissenting. Respondent was convicted of violating California Health and Safety Code § 11532 which
prohibits furnishing narcotics to a minor. The only issue at his trial was whether he had
in fact furnished Porter, a minor, with marihuana. On the direct testimony, it does not
appear that he could have been constitutionally convicted, for it seems that there would
have been insufficient evidence to sustain a finding of guilt. The State presented three
witnesses to prove respondent's guilt: Porter and Officers Wade and Dominguez. As the
Court states, Porter testified at trial that "he was uncertain how he obtained the
marihuana, primarily because he was at the time on 'acid' (LSD), which he had taken 20
minutes before respondent phoned. Porter claimed that he was unable to remember the events
that followed the phone call, and that the drugs he had taken prevented his distinguishing
fact from fantasy." Ante, at 152. Officer Wade had no personal knowledge of the facts
of the alleged offense; he was able only to report the content of an extra-judicial
statement that Porter had made to him. Officer Dominguez testified about an incident
wholly separate from the alleged offense; his testimony was consistent with the defense
account of the facts. *footnote 1 Thus, the evidence on which respondent was found guilty consisted of two pretrial
statements by Porter. The first was the account given Officer Wade. It was unsworn and not
subject to defense cross-examination. Porter's demeanor while making the statement was not
observed by the trial factfinder. The statement was made under unreliable circumstances --
it was taken four days after Porter's arrest for selling marihuana to an undercover agent
and while he was still in custody. *footnote 2 No written transcript of the statement was
introduced at trial. Officer Wade recounted it simply as he remembered Porter's words.
*footnote 3 The second statement was given by Porter during respondent's preliminary
hearing. It was sworn and subject to cross-examination. Defense counsel, however, did not
engage in a searching examination. *footnote 4 Again, Porter's demeanor while he made this
statement was unobserved by the trial factfinder. The statement was put before this
factfinder, of course, when at various points during Porter's direct examination at trial
the prosecutor read excerpts from his preliminary hearing testimony. Accordingly, the facts of this case present two questions regarding the application of
California Evidence Code § 1235: first, whether the Confrontation Clause permits a
witness' extra-judicial statement to be admitted at trial as substantive evidence when the
witness claims to be unable to remember the events with which his prior statement dealt,
and, second, whether the clause permits a witness' preliminary hearing statement, made
under oath and subject to cross-examination, to be introduced at trial as substantive
evidence when the witness claims to be unable to remember the events with which the
statement dealt. In my view, neither statement can be introduced without
unconstitutionally restricting the right of the accused to challenge incriminating
evidence in the presence of the factfinder who will determine his guilt or innocence. I The Court points out that "the particular vice that gave impetus to the
confrontation claim was the practice of trying defendants on 'evidence' which consisted
solely of ex parte affidavits or depositions secured by the examining magistrates, thus
denying the defendant the opportunity to challenge his accuser in a face-to-face encounter
in front of the trier of fact." Ante, at 156. A face-to-face encounter, of course, is
important, not so that the accused can view at trial his accuser's visage, but so that he
can directly challenge the accuser's testimony before the factfinder. See 5 J. Wigmore,
Evidence §§ 1364, 1365 (3d ed. 1940). We made this clear in Mattox v. United States, 156
U.S. 237, 242-243 (1895), where we stressed the necessity of "a personal examination
and cross-examination of the witness in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of
testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him
to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and The Honorable
Judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony
whether he is worthy of belief." There is no way to test the recollection and sift the conscience of a witness regarding
the facts of an alleged offense if he is unwilling or unable to be questioned about them;
*footnote 5 defense counsel cannot probe the story of a silent witness and attempt to
expose facts that qualify or discredit it. The impetus to truth inherent in the oath sworn
by the witness, in the penalty for perjury, and in the serious purpose of the courtroom
have no effect on him so far as the facts of the alleged offense are concerned. Nor,
obviously, can the factfinder view his demeanor while he recounts the facts. If the
witness claims that he is unable to remember the pertinent events, it is true that this
assertion can be challenged, and that in making and defending it the witness will be
affected by his oath, the penalty for perjury, and the courtroom atmosphere. It is equally
true that the trial factfinder can observe and weigh the witness' demeanor as he makes and
defends such a claim. But a decision by the factfinder that the witness is lying sheds no
direct light on the accuracy of any pretrial statement made by him; that statement remains
without the support or discredit that can come only from the probing of its factual basis
while the witness stands face to face with the accused and the factfinder. If the
factfinder decides that the witness is honestly unable to remember the events in question,
that conclusion may or may not directly guide the factfinder in assessing the reliability
of the pretrial statement. If, for example, the witness were unable to remember the
pertinent facts because he was under the influence of drugs at the time they occurred, the
factfinder might reasonably disregard any pretrial account of these events given by the
witness. This Court has already explicitly held in Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 419-420
(1965), that the Confrontation Clause forbids the substantive use at trial of a prior
extra-judicial statement, when the declarant is present at trial but unwilling to testify
about the events with which his prior statement dealt. In Douglas the prosecution
introduced the alleged confession of the accused's supposed accomplice, one Loyd, who was
unwilling to testify about the pertinent events for fear of self-incrimination. We held
that "petitioner's inability to cross-examine Loyd as to the alleged confession
plainly denied him the right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause.
Loyd's alleged statement that the petitioner fired the shotgun constituted the only direct
evidence that he had done so . . . . Effective confrontation of Loyd was possible only if
Loyd affirmed the statement as his. However, Loyd did not do so, but relied on his
privilege to refuse to answer." For purposes of the Confrontation Clause, there is no significant difference between a
witness who fails to testify about an alleged offense because he is unwilling to do so and
a witness whose silence is compelled by an inability to remember. Both are called to the
stand to testify. The jury may view the demeanor of each as he indicates why he will not
discuss the crucial events. But in neither instance are the purposes of the Confrontation
Clause satisfied, because the witness cannot be questioned at trial concerning the
pertinent facts. In both cases, if a pretrial statement is introduced for the truth of the
facts asserted, the witness becomes simply a conduit for the admission of stale evidence,
whose reliability can never be tested before the trial factfinder by cross-examination of
the declarant about the operative events, and by observation of his demeanor as he
testifies about them. Unlike the Court, I see no reason to leave undecided the inadmissibility of Porter's
statements to Officer Wade. We have before us the transcript of Porter's trial testimony.
He could not remember the operative events. Whether he feigned loss of memory is
irrelevant to respondent's confrontation claim. Under Douglas his statement to Officer
Wade must be excluded as substantive evidence. *footnote 6 II The question remains whether the fact that a pretrial statement was obtained at a
preliminary hearing, under oath and subject to cross-examination, distinguishes that
statement for confrontation purposes from an extra-judicial statement. I thought that our
decision in Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719 (1968), resolved this issue. In Barber we stated
that confrontation at a preliminary hearing cannot compensate for the absence of
confrontation at trial, because the nature and objectives of the two proceedings differ
significantly. In that case, the prosecution argued that the accused had waived his right
to cross-examination at the preliminary hearing. Though we rejected that argument, to put
beyond doubt the necessity for confrontation at trial, we stated: "Moreover, we would reach the same result on the facts of this case had
petitioner's counsel actually cross-examined [the witness] at the preliminary hearing. . .
. The right to confrontation is basically a trial right. It includes both the opportunity
to cross-examine and the occasion for the jury to weigh the demeanor of the witness. A
preliminary hearing is ordinarily a much less searching exploration into the merits of a
case than a trial, simply because its function is the more limited one of determining
whether probable cause exists to hold the accused for trial." Id., at 725. *footnote
7 We applied Barber retroactively in Berger v. California, 393 U.S. 314 (1969), a case in
which defense counsel did have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness at the
preliminary hearing. We held, nonetheless, that "clearly, petitioner's inability to
cross-examine . . . at trial may have had a significant effect on the 'integrity of the
fact-finding process.'" Id., at 315. Preliminary hearings in California are not atypical in their nature and objectives: " In most California criminal prosecutions the preliminary examination is
conducted as a rather perfunctory uncontested proceeding with only one likely denouement
-- an order holding the defendant for trial. Only television lawyers customarily demolish
the prosecution in the magistrate's court. The prosecution need show only 'probable
cause,' a burden vastly lighter than proof beyond a reasonable doubt." People v.
Gibbs, 255 Cal. App. 2d 739, 743-744, 63 Cal. Rptr. 471, 475 (1967). It follows that the purposes of the Confrontation Clause cannot be satisfied by a
face-to-face encounter at the preliminary hearing. Cross-examination at the hearing pales
beside that which takes place at trial. This is so for a number of reasons. First, as
noted, the objective of the hearing is to establish the presence or absence of probable
cause, not guilt or innocence proved beyond a reasonable doubt; thus, if evidence suffices
to establish probable cause, defense counsel has little reason at the preliminary hearing
to show that it does not conclusively establish guilt -- or, at least, he had little
reason before today's decision. Second, neither defense nor prosecution is eager before
trial to disclose its case by extensive examination at the preliminary hearing; thorough
questioning of a prosecution witness by defense counsel may easily amount to a grant of
gratis discovery to the State. Third, the schedules of neither court nor counsel can
easily accommodate lengthy preliminary hearings. Fourth, even were the judge and lawyers
not concerned that the proceedings be brief, the defense and prosecution have generally
had inadequate time before the hearing to prepare for extensive examination. Finally,
though counsel were to engage in extensive questioning, a part of its force would never
reach the trial factfinder, who would know the examination only second hand. As the
California Supreme Court stated: "Lost in a cold reading of the preliminary transcript is the more subtle yet
undeniable effect of counsel's rhetorical style, his pauses for emphasis and his
variations in tone, as well as his personal rapport with the jurors, as he pursues his
cross-examination. For example, . . . while the lawyer 'must keep control of himself . . .
this does not mean that the cross-examiner never should fight with a witness, raise his
voice, or become angry. Forensic indignation, whether expressed physically or verbally,
may produce good results in special circumstances.' In addition, counsel may well conduct
his cross-examination in a different manner before a committing magistrate than before a
trial court or jury. Thus, . . . counsel must always temper his cross-examination to the
individual jurors, using their reactions as a guide to the most effective line of
questioning. 'The cross-examiner must remember that he is a performer and the jurors are
his audience. No good performer ignores his audience, and all performances are conducted
for the purpose of favorably impressing the audience.' . . . We conclude that experience
demonstrates the essentiality of truly contemporaneous cross-examination." 70 Cal.
2d, at 662-663, 451 P. 2d, at 427. If cross-examination at the preliminary hearing rarely approximates that at trial,
observation by the trial factfinder of the witness' demeanor as he gives his prior
testimony is virtually nonexistent. Unless the committing magistrate is also the trial
factfinder, the demeanor purpose of the Confrontation Clause is wholly negated by
substituting confrontation at the preliminary hearing for confrontation at trial. And yet,
in the words of the California court, "it is because demeanor -- attitude and manner
-- is a significant factor in weighing testimonial evidence that it is axiomatic the trier
of fact, before whom the witness testified and was cross-examined . . . , is the sole
judge of the credibility of a witness and of the weight to be given his testimony."
Id., at 662, 451 P. 2d, at 427. No such determination of credibility is possible when the
witness comes before the trial factfinder by the reading of a cold transcript. It appears, then, that in terms of the purposes of the Confrontation Clause, an
equation of face-to-face encounter at the preliminary hearing with confrontation at trial
must rest largely on the fact that the witness testified at the hearing under oath,
subject to the penalty for perjury, and in a courtroom atmosphere. These factors are not
insignificant, but by themselves they fall far short of satisfying the demands of
constitutional confrontation. Moreover, the atmosphere and stakes are different in the two
proceedings. In the hurried, somewhat pro forma context of the average preliminary
hearing, a witness may be more careless in his testimony than in the more measured and
searching atmosphere of a trial. Similarly, a man willing to perjure himself when the
consequences are simply that the accused will stand trial may be less willing to do so
when his lies may condemn the defendant to loss of liberty. In short, it ignores reality
to assume that the purposes of the Confrontation Clause are met during a preliminary
hearing. Accordingly, to introduce preliminary hearing testimony for the truth of the
facts asserted, when the witness is in court and either unwilling or unable to testify
regarding the pertinent events, denies the accused his Sixth Amendment right to grapple
effectively with incriminating evidence. The Court's ruling, moreover, may have unsettling effects on the nature and objectives
of future preliminary hearings. The California Court defined the problem: "Were we to
equate preliminary and trial testimony one practical result might be that the preliminary
hearing, designed to afford an efficient and speedy means of determining the narrow
question of probable cause, would tend to develop into a full-scale trial. This would
invite thorough and lengthy cross-examination, with the consequent necessity of delays and
continuances to bring in rebuttal and impeachment witnesses, to gather all available
evidence, and to assure generally that nothing remained for later challenge. In time this
result would prostitute the accepted purpose of preliminary hearings and might place an
intolerable burden on the time and resources of the courts of first instance." 70
Cal. 2d, at 664, 451 P. 2d, at 428. Conscientious defense counsel, aware that today's decision has increased the likelihood
of the use of preliminary hearing testimony at trial, may well wish to conduct a
full-scale, unlimited cross-examination of prosecution witnesses at the hearing. We held
in Coleman v. Alabama, ante, p. 1, that an accused has a right to assistance of counsel
during a preliminary hearing. And we have made clear that "it is a denial of the
accused's constitutional right to a fair trial to force him to trial with such expedition
as to deprive him of the effective aid and assistance of counsel." White v. Ragen,
324 U.S. 760, 764 (1945). In light of today's decision, may defense counsel be denied
requests for delay that are reasonably necessary to enable him to conduct a thorough
examination at the preliminary hearing? What limits, if any, may still be placed on the
defense's use of the preliminary hearing as a discovery device to extract information from
the prosecution that is reasonably necessary, not to a determination of probable cause,
but to a rigorous examination of government witnesses? Do the requisites of
"effective assistance of counsel" require defense counsel to conduct such an
examination? *footnote 8 The Court relies heavily on the traditional practice of admitting the prior testimony
of a witness who is physically unavailable at trial. It finds no ground for distinguishing
between the pretrial declarant who fails to testify at trial because he is not physically
present and the pretrial declarant who, though present at trial, fails to testify because
he is unwilling or unable to do so. The Court reasons that the "necessity" for
the introduction of either declarant's prior statement is "the State's 'need' to
introduce relevant evidence," and that the testimony's "reliability" rests
"on the circumstances under which it was given -- circumstances that remain
unaffected regardless of whether the witness is present or absent at the later
trial." Ante, at 167 n. 16. I disagree. The State, obviously, does need to introduce relevant evidence. But the
"necessity" that justifies the admission of pretrial statements is not the
prosecution's need to convict, but the factfinder's need to be presented with reliable
evidence to aid its determination of guilt or innocence. Whether a witness' assertions are
reliable ordinarily has little or no bearing on their admissibility, for they are subject
to the corrective influences of his demeanor and cross-examination. If, however, there is
no possibility that his assertions can be so tested at trial, then their reliability
becomes an important factor in deciding whether to permit their presentation to the
factfinder. When a probability exists that incriminating pretrial testimony is unreliable,
its admission, absent confrontation, will prejudicially distort the factfinding process. The reliability of pretrial testimony, in turn, is not determined simply by the
circumstances under which it was given. It is also influenced by subsequent developments.
If, for example, prior testimony is later disavowed by the declarant in an extra-judicial
but convincing statement, it would be unrealistic to argue at a later trial, from which
the declarant was physically absent, that the reliability of his prior testimony was
unaffected by the intervening event. The subsequent developments under consideration here are (1) failure to testify at
trial because of physical unavailability and (2) failure to testify because of
unwillingness to do so or inability to remember. In my view, these developments have very
different implications for the reliability of prior testimony. Physical unavailability is
generally a neutral factor; in most instances, it does not cast doubt on the witness'
earlier assertions. Inability to remember the pertinent events, on the other hand, or
unwillingness to testify about them, whether because of feigned loss of memory or fear of
self-incrimination, does cast such doubt. Honest inability to remember at trial raises
serious question about clarity of memory at the time of the pretrial statement. The deceit
inherent in feigned loss of memory lessens confidence in the probity of prior assertions.
And fear of self-incrimination at trial suggests that the witness may have shaped prior
testimony so as to avoid dangerous consequences for himself. Reliability cannot be assumed
simply because a prior statement was made at a preliminary hearing. In sum, I find that Porter's real or pretended lapse of memory about the pertinent
events casts serious doubt upon the reliability of his preliminary hearing testimony. It
is clear that so long as a witness, such as Porter, cannot or will not testify about these
events at trial, the accused remains unable to challenge effectively that witness' prior
assertions about them. The probable unreliability of the prior testimony, coupled with the
impossibility of its examination during trial, denies the accused his right to probe and
attempt to discredit incriminating evidence. Accordingly, I would hold California Evidence
Code § 1235 in violation of the Confrontation Clause to the extent that it permits the
substantive use at trial of prior statements, whether extra-judicial or testimonial, when
the declarant is present at trial but unable or unwilling to be questioned about the
events with which the prior statements dealt. I would therefore affirm the reversal of
respondent's conviction. Opinion Footnotes *footnote 1 Cal. Evid. Code § 1235 (1966). Section 770 merely requires that the
witness be given an opportunity to explain or deny the prior statement at some point in
the trial. See Cal. Evid. Code § 770 (1966); People v. Johnson, 68 Cal. 2d 646, 650 n. 2,
441 P. 2d 111, 114 n. 2 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1051 (1969). *footnote 2 See People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 657 n. 1, 451 P. 2d 422, 424 n. 1
(1969). *footnote 3 See the comments of the California Law Revision Commission, Cal. Evid. Code
§ 1235 (1966). *footnote 4 E. g., Ellis v. United States, 138 F.2d 612, 616-621 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1943);
State v. Saporen, 205 Minn. 358, 361-362, 285 N. W. 898, 900-901 (1939). The cases are
collected in 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1018 (3d ed. 1940) [hereinafter cited as Wigmore]
and Annot., 133 A. L. R. 1454, 1455-1457 (1941). *footnote 5 See Jett v. Commonwealth, 436 S. W. 2d 788 (Ky. 1969); Gelhaar v. State, 41
Wis. 2d 230, 163 N. W. 2d 609 (1969). See also United States v. De Sisto, 329 F.2d 929 (C.
A. 2d Cir.) (Friendly, J.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 979 (1964); United States v. Block, 88
F.2d 618, 620 (C. A. 2d Cir.) (L. Hand, J.), cert. denied, 301 U.S. 690 (1937); Di Carlo
v. United States, 6 F.2d 364, 368 (C. A. 2d Cir.) (L. Hand, J.), cert. denied, 268 U.S.
706 (1925). *footnote 6 Dean Wigmore was the first noted commentator to adopt this position,
abandoning his earlier approval, in the first edition of his Treatise, of the orthodox
view. See 3 Wigmore § 1018 n. 2. Both the Model Code and the Uniform Rules have since
followed the Wigmore position, see Model Code of Evidence Rule 503 (b) (1942); Uniform
Rule of Evidence 63 (1) (1953), as has the recent preliminary draft of the rules of
evidence for the lower federal courts, see Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of
the Judicial Conference of the United States, Preliminary Draft of Proposed Rules of
Evidence for the United States District Courts and Magistrates, Rule 8-01 (c)(2) (1969).
For commentators who have urged views similar to Wigmore's see C. McCormick, Evidence §
39 (1954); Maguire, The Hearsay System: Around and Through the Thicket, 14 Vand. L. Rev.
741, 747 (1961); Morgan, Hearsay Dangers and the Application of the Hearsay Concept, 62
Harv. L. Rev. 177, 192-196 (1948). *footnote 7 3 Wigmore § 1018. *footnote 8 See The Supreme Court, 1967 Term, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 63, 236 (1968); Note,
Confrontation and the Hearsay Rule, 75 Yale L. J. 1434, 1436 (1966). *footnote 9 See, e. g., McCormick, (supra) , n. 6, at 455-457; 5 Wigmore § 1364;
Morgan, (supra) , n. 6, at 179-183. See also 9 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law
177-187, 214-219 (3d ed. 1944); Note, Preserving the Right to Confrontation -- A New
Approach to Hearsay Evidence in Criminal Trials, 113 U. Pa. L. Rev. 741, 746-747 (1965). *footnote 10 1 J. Stephen, A History of the of England 326 (1883). See also 9
Holdsworth, (supra) , n. 9, at 225-228. A famous example is provided by the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh for treason in 1603. A
crucial element of the evidence against him consisted of the statements of one Cobham,
implicating Raleigh in a plot to seize the throne. Raleigh had since received a written
retraction from Cobham, and believed that Cobham would now testify in his favor. After a
lengthy dispute over Raleigh's right to have Cobham called as a witness, Cobham was not
called, and Raleigh was convicted. See 1 Stephen, (supra) , at 333-336; 9 Holdsworth,
(supra) , at 216-217, 226-228. At least one author traces the Confrontation Clause to the
common-law reaction against these abuses of the Raleigh trial. See F. Heller, The Sixth
Amendment 104 (1951). *footnote 11 5 Wigmore § 1367. *footnote 12 See Comment, Substantive Use of Extra-judicial Statements of Witnesses
Under the Proposed Federal Rules of Evidence, 4 U. Rich. L. Rev. 110, 117-118 (1969); 82
Harv. L. Rev. 475 n. 16 (1968). *footnote 13 The California Supreme Court in its earlier decision on this issue stated
that "this practical truth [the importance of immediate cross-examination] is daily
verified by trial lawyers, not one of whom would willingly postpone to both a later date
and a different forum his right to cross-examine a witness against his client."
People v. Johnson, 68 Cal. 2d 646, 655, 441 P. 2d 111, 118 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S.
1051 (1969). The citations that follow this sentence are to books on trial practice that
shed little empirical light on the actual comparative effectiveness of subsequent, as
opposed to timely, cross-examination. As the text suggests, where the witness has changed
his story at trial to favor the defendant he should, if anything, be more rather than less
vulnerable to defense counsel's explanations for the inaccuracy of his former statement. *footnote 14 See generally, e. g., 5 Wigmore §§ 1420-1422. *footnote 15 Whether admission of the statement would have violated federal evidentiary
rules against hearsay, see 391 U.S., at 128 n. 3, is, as emphasized earlier in this
opinion, a wholly separate question. Indeed, failure to comply with federal evidentiary
standards appears to be the reason for the result in Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945)
-- the only case which might be thought to suggest the existence of a possible
constitutional problem in admitting a witness' prior inconsistent statements as
substantive evidence. There the Court reversed a deportation order based on such evidence,
but the holding was an alternative one and explicitly rested on the ground that the
relevant agency rules did not permit the use of such statements. See 326 U.S., at 151-153.
While the Court did suggest that the use of such statements in a criminal case would run
"counter to the notions of fairness on which our legal system is founded," id.,
at 154, the discussion and citations appear to refer to the "orthodox" position
earlier adopted by this Court as a matter of federal evidentiary, not constitutional, law.
See Hickory v. United States, 151 U.S. 303, 309 (1894). While we may agree that
considerations of due process, wholly apart from the Confrontation Clause, might prevent
convictions where a reliable evidentiary basis is totally lacking, see Thompson v.
Louisville, 362 U.S. 199 (1960), we do not read Bridges as declaring that the Constitution
is necessarily violated by the admission of a witness' prior inconsistent statement for
the truth of the matter asserted. The Court's opinion in Bridges does not discuss the
Confrontation Clause. *footnote 16 The explanation advanced for the contrary conclusion seems to be that
where the witness is dead or otherwise unavailable, the State may in good faith assume he
would have given the same story at trial, and may introduce the former testimony as
reasonably reliable and as prompted by the factor of "necessity." On the
contrary, it is argued, where the witness is present to testify but does not relate the
same story, "necessity," "reliability," and the assumption that the
story would be the same are all destroyed. See People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 664 and n.
11, 451 P. 2d 422, 428-429 and n. 11 (1969); Brief for Respondent 32. But the only
"necessity" that exists in either case is the State's "need" to
introduce relevant evidence that through no fault of its own cannot be introduced in any
other way. And the "assumption" that the witness would have given the same story
if he had been available at trial, is little more than another way of saying that the
testimony was given under circumstances that make it reasonably reliable -- there is
nothing in a witness' death by itself, for example, which would justify assuming his story
would not have changed at trial. Finally, the "reliability" of the statement is
based on the circumstances under which it was given -- circumstances that remain
unaffected regardless of whether the witness is present or absent at the later trial.
Surely in terms of protecting the defendant's interests, and the jury's ability to assess
the reliability of the evidence it hears, it seems most unlikely that respondent in this
case would have been better off, as the dissent seems to suggest, if Porter had died, and
his prior testimony were admitted, than he was in the instant case where Porter's conduct
on the stand cast substantial doubt on his prior statement. As long as the State has made
a good-faith effort to produce the witness, the actual presence or absence of the witness
cannot be constitutionally relevant for purposes of the "unavailability"
exception. *footnote 17 The hearsay exception itself has generally recognized that a witness is
"unavailable" for purposes of the exception where through lapse of memory or a
plea of the Fifth Amendment privilege, the State cannot secure his live testimony. See 5
Wigmore §§ 1408, 1409. *footnote 18 Even among proponents of the view that prior statements should be
admissible as substantive evidence, disagreement appears to exist as to whether to apply
this rule to the case of a witness who disclaims all present knowledge of the ultimate
event. Commentators have noted that in such a case the opportunities for testing the prior
statement through cross-examination at trial may be significantly diminished. See Falknor,
The Hearsay Rule and Its Exceptions, 2 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 43, 53 (1954); 31 N. Y. U. L.
Rev. 1101, 1105 (1956). While both the Model Code and the Uniform Rules would apparently
admit prior inconsistent statements even where the witness claims to have no present
knowledge or recollection of the event, see Model Code of Evidence Rule 503 (b), Comment
b, at 234 (1942); Uniform Rule of Evidence 63 (1), Comment (1953), the preliminary draft
of proposed rules of evidence for lower federal courts seems to limit admissibility to the
case where the witness actually testifies concerning the substance of the event at issue,
see Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United
States, Preliminary Draft of Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States District
Courts and Magistrates, rule 8-01 (c)(2)(i), Advisory Comm. Notes at 165 (1969). See
Comment, Substantive Use of Extra-judicial Statements of Witnesses Under the Proposed
Federal Rules of Evidence, 4 U. Rich. L. Rev. 110, 119 and n. 40 (1969). The latter
position accords with the common-law practice of not permitting prior inconsistent
statements to be introduced even for impeachment purposes until and unless the witness has
actually given "inconsistent" testimony concerning the substance of the event
described in the prior statement. Id., at 119, 121; see e. g., Westinghouse Electric Corp.
v. Wray Equipment Corp., 286 F.2d 491, 493 (C. A. 1st Cir.), cert. denied, 366 U.S. 929
(1961); 3 Wigmore § 1043. *footnote 19 This issue is not insubstantial. Conviction here rests almost entirely on
the evidence in Porter's two prior statements which were themselves inconsistent in some
respects. See, e. g., Brief for Respondent 3 and n. 2, 49-50. The California Supreme Court
also found it unnecessary to reach respondent's additional contentions of suppression of
evidence and prejudicial misconduct. See People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 666, 451 P. 2d
422, 429 (1969). Moreover, as noted earlier in this opinion, ante, at 153 and n. 2, the
California court suggested that Porter's prior statements may not even have been
admissible under § 1235 as "inconsistent" with his testimony at trial. Compare
People v. Green, supra, at 657 n. 1, 451 P. 2d, at 424 n. 1, with n. 18, (supra) . IN AGREEMENT FOOTNOTES 1 Cal. Evid. Code § 1235 (1966). 2 Jett v. Commonwealth, 436 S. W. 2d 788 (Ky. 1969). 3 Gelhaar v. State, 41 Wis. 2d 230, 163 N. W.2d 609 (1969), petition for certiorari
pending, No. 389, Misc., O. T. 1969. 1 The Court declines to consider the admissibility of Porter's out-of-court declaration
to Officer Wade and remands for a determination as to whether it was properly admissible
under California law. I consider this in Part IV, (infra). 2 While this broad problem that lies beneath the surface of today's case would, in my
view, have been more appropriately considered in a more conventional hearsay setting,
where the maker of extra-judicial statement is not present at trial, it has been briefed
and argued by both sides, and I reach it now, notwithstanding the pendency of No. 21,
Dutton v. Evans, on our docket. Dutton was argued before us on Oct. 15, 1969, and on Apr.
27, 1970, was set for reargument. 397 U.S. 1060. The case will be heard at the next Term. 3 The easy assumption that confrontation is the right to exclude hearsay also appears
in cases involving state criminal prosecutions where this Court, as a matter of due
process, declined to hold applicable to the States the Sixth Amendment's right to
confrontation. See, e. g., Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156 (1953); but see West v.
Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258 (1904). 4 This is not merely a case of prior decisions that may have been incorrectly decided
or rationalized. The unworkability of constitutionalizing any aspect of the conventional
hearsay rule means what is at stake is the future of sound constitutional development in
this area. Cf. Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U.S. 111, 116 (1965), where we noted the
mischief of "perpetuation of an unworkable rule." Moragne v. States Marine
Lines, 398 U.S. 375 (1970); Boys Markets v. Retail Clerks, 398 U.S. 235 (1970); my
dissenting opinion in Baldwin v. New York, ante, p. 117, and my separate opinion in Welsh
v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 344 (1970), and my dissenting opinion in Desist v. United
States, 394 U.S. 244, 256 (1969). 5 The Georgia Constitution of 1877 lends some support for this restricted reading of
confrontation. See Art. I, § 1, para. 5, which provided that the accused "shall be
confronted with the witnesses testifying against him . . . ." (Emphasis added.) The
natural reading of the provision, phrased as it is, would be to restrict the guarantee to
individuals who are appearing in court. 6 Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Maryland, and Virginia all included in
their early constitutions a confrontation provision. See F. Heller, The Sixth Amendment
22-24 (1951). The documents are reprinted in F. Thorpe, The Federal and State
Constitutions passim (1909). Wigmore has collected the state provisions. 5 J. Wigmore,
Evidence § 1397, at 127-130 (3d ed. 1940). 7 See 1 J. Elliot's Debates 328, 334 (1876). 8 See 1 Annals of Cong. (1789-1790). Thus, my own research satisfies me that the
prevailing view -- that the usual primary sources and digests of the early debates contain
no informative material on the confrontation right -- is correct. Note, Confrontation and
the Hearsay Rule, 75 Yale L. J. 1434, 1436 n. 10 (1966); Note, Preserving the Right to
Confrontation -- A New Approach to Hearsay Evidence in Criminal Trials, 113 U. Pa. L. Rev.
741, 742 (1965); Note, Confrontation, Cross-Examination, And the Right to Prepare a
Defense, 56 Geo. L. J. 939, 953 (1968). For a review of the history of confrontation at
English common law see Pollitt, The Right of Confrontation: Its History and Modern Dress,
8 J. Pub. L. 381 (1959). 9 See H. Stephen, "The Trial of Sir Walter Raleigh," Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society 172, 184 (4th ser. Vol. 2, 1919). In discussing Raleigh's trial
Stephen notes, "The modern reader of Raleigh's trial is struck by the fact that he
had no assistance from counsel. He likewise would not have been allowed to call witnesses
had he wished to do so. . . . [The accused was] defended by the argument that the case
against had to be completely proved. If this was done no witnesses or counsel on the other
side need be attended to; if it was not done none were needed." See also Heller,
(supra) , n. 6, at 106-107, and the remarks of Governor Randolph at the Virginia
ratification convention reported at 3 J. Elliot's Debates 467 (1876). 10 Hadley, The Reform of Criminal Procedure, 10 Proceedings of the Academy of Political
Science 396, 400-401 (1923). Hadley's brief remarks would seem to indicate that the abuse
that provoked concern was the use of affidavit and deposition testimony. 11 The only support offered for this reading is the assertion that the Framers were
concerned to prevent the abuses that occurred at the infamous treason trial of Sir Walter
Raleigh. The abuses there, however, went far beyond a conviction based on hearsay. As one
commentator has noted, the reams of deposition testimony given by Raleigh's alleged
accomplice, who turned State's evidence, contained only innuendo and no credible assertion
of substance sufficient to support a verdict. See Stephen, "The Trial of Sir Walter
Raleigh," (supra) , n. 9. In this light, the Sixth Amendment guarantee might well be
read as establishing a basic presumption of producing witnesses without dignifying every
hearsay ruling with constitutional significance. 12 Heller, (supra) , n. 6, at 105, citing H. Rottschaefer, Handbook of American
Constitutional Law 796 (1939). This view is open to question. Wigmore, for one, takes the
position that several exceptions to the hearsay rule existed as of the time the Sixth
Amendment was adopted. 5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1397, at 130. 13 The basis of Wigmore's assertion is that the only right to confrontation known at
common law was that enshrined in the hearsay rule. He concludes that in view of the
seemingly absolute prohibition on the use of hearsay declarations, it is impossible to
apply literally to the Confrontation Clause and that the Framers intended confrontation to
mean common-law hearsay principles. See 5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1397, at 130-131. 14 The early decisions and recent cases are replete with dicta to the effect that
confrontation is equivalent to cross-examination. Instead of treating cases like Brookhart
v. Janis, supra; Pointer v. Texas, supra ; and Douglas v. Alabama, supra ; as denials of
"due process," see (infra), the Court has employed sweeping language, and said,
for example, "a major reason underlying the constitutional confrontation rule is to
give a defendant charged with crime an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against
him." Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S., at 406-407. This kind of broad language, tending to
equate confrontation and cross-examination, and the holding in Bruton have conjured the
spectre of the constitutionalization of the hearsay rule that the dissent is apparently
willing to treat with. It is not surprising that confrontation and hearsay have been considered fungible. The
labels were not until recently likely to affect the result in a federal trial. See comment
in the Preliminary Draft of Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States District
Courts and Magistrates 156 (1969). Cf. Alford v. United States, 282 U.S. 687 (1931) (right
to cross-examine not treated as a denial of confrontation). The portent of the label now emerges to the fore in federal cases, however, against the
backdrop of recent developments that accord special treatment to constitutional errors,
see Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 (1969) (harmless error); Chapman v. California,
386 U.S. 18 (1967); Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 226 (1969) (collateral
relief), and, for the States, in the context of incorporation, which makes every hearsay
ruling a potential 28 U. S. C. § 2254 issue. An additional consequence of
constitutionalizing the hearsay rules would be to put them beyond the reach of Congress.
But see Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966). 15 Only Kirby did not, strictly speaking, involve the use of deposition testimony. In
Kirby's case the Government sought to introduce a judgement of conviction obtained against
three perpetrators of a theft in order to prove that property found in Kirby's possession
was, in fact, stolen. In Reynolds the Court held that an accused cannot complain about the
introduction of prior recorded testimony when the witness' absence is procured by the
defense. In Mattox the Court, analogizing to the exception to the hearsay rule for dying
declarations, held admissible prior recorded testimony taken under oath and subjected to
cross-examination where the witness had died since the first trial. In Motes the Court
declined to countenance testimony taken subject to cross-examination where it appeared the
Government might have produced the witness. Most later cases have also involved written testimony. See, e. g., Barber v. Page,
supra; Pointer v. Texas, supra; Douglas v. Alabama, supra (confession); Stein v. New York,
346 U.S. 156, 194 (1953) (confession); West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258 (1904); cf. Greene
v. McElroy, 360 U.S. 474 (1959). Other problems treated under the rubric of confrontation
have included, inter alia, the exclusion of the accused from his trial, In re Oliver, 333
U.S. 257 (1948); Brookhart v. Janis, supra ; cf. Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97
(1934) (a viewing); Parker v. Gladden, 385 U.S. 363 (1966) (improper remarks by bailiff);
Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466 (1965). That, historically, the primary concern was the possibility of trial by affidavit may
be evidenced by several early state constitutional provisions that specifically made
exceptions to confrontation by providing for use of depositions when the witness is
unavailable. See, e. g., California Const., 1879, Art. I, § 13 ("The Legislature
shall have power to provide for the taking, in the presence of the party accused and his
counsel, of depositions of witnesses in criminal cases, other than cases of homicide when
there is reason to believe that the witness, from inability or other cause, will not
attend at the trial."); Colorado Const., 1876, Art. II, § 16; Montana Const., 1889,
Art. III, §§ 16, 17; Ohio Const., 1851, Art. I, § 10; Texas Const., 1876, Art. I, §
10, as amended 1918. 16 Interestingly in Hopt v. Utah, 110 U.S. 574 (1884), the Court, speaking through the
same Justice who wrote Kirby, in holding that it was error to permit a surgeon to testify
that he had examined the body of the alleged victim of the charged homicide when the
surgeon's knowledge as to the identity of the deceased came from a third party, relied
only on hearsay principles and made no allusion to the Confrontation Clause. 17 That the critical element is availability cannot be doubted. The West opinion does
not emphasize the opportunity to cross-examine at the time of taking the depositions, and,
as already remarked, that would appear to be of secondary concern given the recognition in
Mattox of the dying declaration exception. West, moreover, perforce stands for the
proposition that confrontation is indifferent to any limitations on the nature of
cross-examination at a preliminary hearing that underlie the dissent in this case. In view of the extended discussion of federal precedents and the express rejection of
West's contentions thereunder, for present purposes it is of no consequence that the case
involved a state criminal prosecution and that the Court declined to hold the Sixth
Amendment applicable as such. 18 While the importance of the right to cross-examine is not to be minimized, see 5
Wigmore, (supra) , § 1367, the desirability of excluding otherwise relevant evidence
simply because it has not been tested by cross-examination has been frequently questioned.
See generally C. McCormick, Evidence §§ 224, 302-305, at 459, 628-634 (1954); ALI Model
Code of Evidence Rules 502, 503, and Comment, at 231-232 (1942); Preliminary Draft of
Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States District Courts and Magistrates, Rule
8-03, at 173 (1969); Uniform Rules of Evidence, Rule 63 (liberalized exceptions). See also
James, The Role of Hearsay in a Rational Scheme of Evidence, 34 Ill. L. Rev. 788 (1940);
Chadbourn, Bentham and The Hearsay Rule -- A Benthamic View of Rule 63 (4)(c) of the
Uniform Rules of Evidence, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 932, 942-951 (1962) (Uniform Rules too
restricted); McCormick, Hearsay, 10 Rutgers L. Rev. 620, 630 (1956) (commenting on Uniform
Rules); cf. Quick, Evidence, 6 Wayne L. Rev. 163, 168 (1959) (apparently critical of the
trend toward admissibility). Judges, too, have disagreed on the desirability of excluding
hearsay, compare Chief Justice Marshall's view set forth in Queen v. Hepburn, 7 Cranch 290
(1813), and that of Justice Story in Ellicott v. Pearl, 10 Pet. 412, 436 (1836), with that
of Judge Learned Hand set forth in his lecture to the Association of the Bar of the City
of New York, The Deficiencies of Trials to Reach the Heart of the Matter, 3 Lectures on
Legal Topics, 1921-1922, p. 89 (1926). 19 See Report of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Evidence (1963). The
potential for suffocating creative thinking is suggested by the commentary on the Uniform
Rules of Evidence by the California Law Revision Commission. Prior to Pointer in 1962 the
commission noted that despite the federal rule, it was free, consistent with due process,
to consider and adopt Uniform Rule 63 (3)(b)(ii), providing for use of testimony from a
former trial when there was an identity of issues and reason to believe there would have
been adequate cross-examination and the declarant is unavailable. The commission
recommended adoption of Rule 63 (3)(b)(ii). See Tentative Recommendation and a Study
Relating to the Uniform Rules of Evidence (1962), in 4 California Law Revision Commission:
Reports, Recommendations and Studies 454-457 (1963). The provision was omitted from the
new evidence code with a comment that a defendant in a criminal prosecution should not be
made to rely on another individual's cross-examination. Evidence Code with Official
Comments 1250 (California Law Revision Commission 1965). While this Court's decision in
Pointer was apparently not responsible for the decision to omit this provision, since the
final commission report was submitted in January 1965, prior to Pointer, it is clear that
were hearsay constitutionalized, California could not even have considered this
innovation. *footnote 20 This is not to say that the right to cross-examination is not an element
of due process. Alford v. United States, 282 U.S. 687 (1931); In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257
(1948); Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97 (1934); Smith v. Illinois, 390 U.S. 129
(1968). Due process does not permit a conviction based on no evidence, Thompson v. City of
Louisville, 362 U.S. 199 (1960); Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U.S. 536 (1927), or on evidence so
unreliable and untrustworthy that it may be said that the accused had been tried by a
kangaroo court. Cf. In re Oliver, supra; Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466 (1965). In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967), and Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377
(1968), the underlying principle was refined. The Court there recognized that evidence of
identification -- always a critical issue in a criminal trial -- should not be received if
the circumstances of a pretrial confrontation were so infected by suggestiveness as to
give rise to an irreparable likelihood of misidentification. By the same token I would not
permit a conviction to stand where the critical issues at trial were supported only by ex
parte testimony not subjected to cross-examination, and not found to be reliable by the
trial judge. Cf. United States v. Kearney, 136 U. S. App. D.C. 328, 420 F.2d 170 (1969).
It will, of course, be the unusual situation where the prosecution's entire case is built
upon hearsay testimony of an unavailable witness. In such circumstance the defendant would
be entitled to a hearing on the reliability of the testimony. Cf. ALI, Model Code of
Evidence; United States v. Kearney, supra. Due process also requires that the defense be
given ample opportunity to alert the jury to the pitfalls of accepting hearsay at face
value, and the defendant would, of course, upon request be entitled to cautionary
instructions. Cf. § 6.17, Manual on Jury Instructions, 33 F.R.D. 601 (missing witnesses).
On the basis of this approach I would stand by my concurrence in the result in Pointer v.
Texas, supra, both because the out-of-court statement formed the bulk of the prosecutor's
case and also because there was no showing that the witness could not have been made
available for cross-examination. See also Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1 (1966); Barber v.
Page, 390 U.S. 719 (1968). The result in Douglas v. Alabama, to which I also still adhere,
can be rationalized under this test since there the inadmissible confession
"constituted the only direct evidence" that petitioner had committed the murder.
380 U.S., at 419. An additional factor would move me to stand by Douglas. It was a case of
prosecutorial misconduct. By placing the witness on the stand and reading in the
confession, the prosecutor, in effect, increased the reliability of the confession in the
jury's eyes in view of the witness' apparent acquiescence as opposed to repudiation. *footnote 21 Cf. Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S.
103 (1935). *footnote 22 The lengths to which the prosecution must go to produce a witness before
it may offer evidence of an extra-judicial declaration is a question of reasonableness.
Barber v. Page, supra ; cf. Mullane v. Central Hanover Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950). A
good-faith effort is, of course, necessary, and added expense or inconvenience is no
excuse. It should also be open to the accused to request a continuance if the
unavailability is only temporary. Cf. Peterson v. United States, 344 F.2d 419, 425 (C. A.
5th Cir. 1965). 1 See People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 657-658, 451 P. 2d 422, 424 (1969). 2 Porter declared under oath on May 12, 1967, that "when I was arrested and was in
custody, the police kept telling me that they knew it was JOHN GREEN I was involved with
and that unless I implicated him that they would see that I was out of circulation for a
long time . . . ." 3 Cf. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 269 (1970), where the Court stated that
"the second-hand presentation to the decision maker by the caseworker has its own
deficiencies; since the caseworker usually gathers the facts upon which the charge of
ineligibility rests, the presentation of the recipient's side of the controversy cannot
safely be left to him." 4 No question, for example, was asked Porter by either the defense or prosecution as to
whether he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the alleged offense. 5 If, on the other hand, the witness is willing and able to testify at trial about the
operative events, the demands of the Confrontation Clause may be met, even though the
witness contradicts his pretrial assertions. I see no need on the facts presented here,
however, to resolve this issue. 6 The fact that in appropriate circumstances such a statement may be admitted to
impeach a witness is not as anomalous as the Court suggests, ante, at 164. If, for
example, Porter's pretrial statements had been admitted at respondent's trial solely for
impeachment purposes, they would not have provided substantive proof of his guilt, and, as
noted, there would then very likely have been insufficient evidence to sustain his
conviction. 7 The California Supreme Court in the present case discussed in more detail the
distinctions between a preliminary hearing and trial, stating that "the purpose of a
preliminary hearing is not a full exploration of the merits of a cause or of the testimony
of the witnesses. It is designed and adapted solely to answer the far narrower preliminary
question of whether probable cause exists for a subsequent trial. The judge in preliminary
proceedings is not required to be convinced of the defendant's guilt 'beyond a reasonable
doubt,' but need only look for reasonable credibility in the charge against him. A
fortiori a witness' testimony, though the only evidence adduced, need not be convincing or
credible beyond a reasonable doubt, and cross-examination which would surely impeach a
witness at trial would not preclude a finding of probable cause at the preliminary stage.
Even given the opportunity . . . neither prosecution nor defense is generally willing or
able to fire all its guns at this early stage of the proceedings, for considerations both
of time and efficacy. . . . Indeed, it is seldom that either party has had time for
investigation to obtain possession of adequate information to pursue in depth direct or
cross-examination." 70 Cal. 2d, at 663, 451 P. 2d, at 428. See also Virgin Islands v.
Aquino, 378 F.2d 540, 549 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1967). 8 Beyond these problems, today's holding raises another practical difficulty: how
extensive must cross-examination at the preliminary hearing be before constitutional
confrontation is deemed to have occurred? Is the mere opportunity for face-to-face
encounter sufficient? Perhaps so. The Court states that "respondent had every
opportunity to cross-examine Porter as to his statement" at the hearing. Ante, at
165. Does that mean that if defense counsel fails to take advantage of the opportunity
that the accused can subsequently be convicted at trial on the basis of wholly untested
evidence? If more than an unexercised chance to cross-examine is required, how thorough
and effective must the questioning be before it satisfies the Confrontation Clause? Is it
significant, for example, that in the present case neither the defense nor prosecution
explored the most elemental fact about Porter's testimony -- the possibility that he was
under the influence of drugs at the time of the alleged offense?