Opinion ID: 1785298
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Origins and Development of the Forfeiture-by-Wrongdoing Exception

Text: A number of cases from England and this nation's colonial period recognized that a forfeiture of the right to confrontation might be found when a defendant had contrived to prevent a witness from testifying against him. James F. Flanagan, Confrontation, Equity, and the Misnamed Exception for Forfeiture by Wrongdoing, 14 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 1193, 1203-05 (2006). Notably, the facts of [those] cases all involve witnesses rather than victims and acts occurring after the witness had been deposed or had testified[,] acts which are explained only by a desire to prevent testimony. Id. at 1203-04. Compare Harrison's Case, 12 How. St. Tr. 834, 851 (Old Bailey 1692) (Eng.) (hearsay statement to coroner admitted where evidence showed defendant's role in witness's subsequent absence), with Lord Morley's Case, 6 How. St. Tr. 770 (H.L. 1666) (Eng.) (witness's hearsay statement inadmissible where defendant could not be shown to have caused witness's unavailability). Importantly, however, English law appears to have treated the forfeiture doctrine as a limited exception to a defendant's right to a certain kind of confrontation, rather than an absolute nullification of the confrontation right as a whole. Under English law, it was a general principle that to render a deposition of any kind evidence against a party    the party should have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness. Henry Roscoe, A Digest of the Law of Evidence in Criminal Cases 71 (4th ed.1852) (citing numerous cases). Simply put, it had to be shown that the deposition was taken in the presence of the prisoner, and that he had an opportunity of cross-examination. Id. When certain circumstances were met, such as when the witness could not be found or the defendant had contrived to prevent the witness from testifying, see id. at 69-70 (describing various circumstances in which properly-conducted deposition could be admitted in place of live testimony), a properly-conducted deposition by a magistrate, with the defendant present and able to cross-examine the witness, would be admissible into evidence. See Robert Kry, Confrontation Under the Marian Statutes: A Response to Professor Davies, 72 Brook. L.Rev. 493, 498-502 (2007) (noting historical evidence that forfeiture was only applicable if defendant had opportunity to previously cross-examine the declarant). [31] Understood this way, it appears that the forfeiture exception itself was originally of limited scope, and barred only the wrongdoer's objection to the absence of the witness at trial, not an objection to the government's total failure to afford him an opportunity for cross-examination. [32] Crawford recognized this aspect of English common law, noting that the pretrial examination of a deceased witness could not be admitted unless the defendant had been given the opportunity to cross-examine that witness. 541 U.S. at 45, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (citing King v. Paine, (1696) 5 Mod. 163, 87 Eng. Rep. 584 (K.B.)); see also 541 U.S. at 46-47, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (noting numerous other cases requiring prior cross-examination). This was despite the fact that the death, for whatever reason, of a witness waslike a forfeiture under English common lawconsidered an exception permitting the admission of a deposition at trial. See Roscoe, supra, at 69 ([I]t is clear that should a witness be proved at the trial    to be dead    his deposition taken before the magistrate will be admissible in evidence. So also, if the witness is kept away by the practices of the prisoner. (internal citations omitted)). Lord Morley's Case and Harrison's Case had some impact on American jurisprudence, and a number of lower courts later agreed that a defendant's attempt to prevent a witness from appearing in court could permit the admission of hearsay evidence against that defendant. See, e.g., Bergen v. People, 17 Ill. 426, 428 (1856) (It is true, if a party in any case, spirits away his adversary's witness, he ought not to profit thereby   .); Drayton v. Wells, 10 S.C.L. (1 Nott & McC.) 409, 410-11 (1819) (deeming admissible statements given in a previous trial on same matter if the witness had been kept away by the contrivance of the opposite party). [33] Ultimately, in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1878), the Supreme Court recognized a narrow exception to the confrontation right that reflected the doctrine applied in the early English cases. In that case, Reynolds was accused of bigamy, and his second wife had testified against him in a previous trial for the same offense. Id. at 146, 159. [34] A subpoena was issued for the wife to appear at Reynolds' second trial, but she could not be located at the home she and Reynolds shared. Id. at 160. When asked where his wife was to be found, Reynolds simply replied, [T]hat will be for you to find out. Id. Based on those facts, the Court concluded that Reynolds had procured his wife's unavailability so as to prevent her from testifying against him at trial. Id. Relying on that conclusion, the Court held that Reynolds' right to confrontation was not violated by the admission of his wife's previous testimony. Id. Reynolds reveals the core purpose of the forfeiture exception. Reynolds had not been accused of merely committing a wrongful act, but had been found to have taken positive steps to ensure the absence of a witness against him. It was in this context of deliberate witness tampering that the Court stated, as repeated in this court's opinion, that the Constitution does not guarantee an accused person against the legitimate consequences of his own wrongful acts. Id. at 158. Reynolds recognized the unique dangers posed by those who exploit the judicial system in the guise of asserting their Sixth Amendment rights, and crafted a narrow exception to that core constitutional right. The broad forfeiture doctrine set forth by the court today represents a substantial expansion of that narrow exception, one which finds little support in Reynolds. Reynolds also implicitly recognized a prerequisite to application of the forfeiture doctrine that appears to have since been lost: the requirement that the defendant have had a previous opportunity to cross-examine the now-absent witness. [35] In Reynolds itself, the testimony to which the defendant objected had been sworn to by [the missing witness] on a former trial of the accused for the same offence. Id. Thus, the hearsay at issue was unique in that it was not merely a declaration that the state sought to admit at trial, but rather testimony that the defendant had already had one opportunity to test by cross-examination. The Court again addressed the forfeiture doctrine in Motes v. United States, 178 U.S. 458, 20 S.Ct. 993, 44 L.Ed. 1150 (1900). In that case, unlike Reynolds, the witness was unavailable at the defendant's trial not because of any affirmative act by the defendant, but because of the apparent negligence of the government in allowing the witness to escape from custody shortly before the trial. Id. at 469, 20 S.Ct. 993. After citing Reynolds and other cases as support, the Court stated that it would not be consistent with the [Confrontation Clause], to permit the deposition or statement of an absent witness (taken at an examining trial) to be read at the final trial, when it does not appear that the witness was absent by the suggestion, connivance or procurement of the accused. Id. at 471-74, 20 S.Ct. 993. Motes reinforced the point already made clear in Reynolds and earlier cases, that a forfeiture must be inexorably linked to a defendant's intentional interference with the judicial process. [36] Also, Motes was entirely consistent with a narrow view of the forfeiture doctrinetraceable back to English common lawunder which a forfeiture could apply only if a previous opportunity for cross-examination had been presented. Although the forfeiture doctrine has roots extending back as far as Reynolds and English law, it was not until the 1970s that the doctrine began to be applied in this our nation's courts. Flanagan, supra, at 1203-05, 1208-10. [37] As the doctrine developed, it came to be understood that the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing exception was necessary for the limited purpose of protecting the integrity of the adversary process by deterring litigants from acting on strong incentives to prevent the testimony of an adverse witness. Steele v. Taylor, 684 F.2d 1193, 1201-02 (6th Cir. 1982). [38] Accordingly, by the 1990s, it was well-established that, for a forfeiture to apply, a declarant-witness must be unavailable because of wrongdoing done by the defendant that was intended to and did procure the witness's absence.  Flanagan, supra, at 1210-11 (emphasis added). [39] This intent requirement is implicated in a substantial number of the cases that have addressed the issue. See, e.g., United States v. Houlihan, 92 F.3d 1271, 1279 (1st Cir.1996); United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616, 630 (5th Cir.1982), superseded by rule on different grounds, Fed. R.Crim.P. 804(b)(6), as recognized in United States v. Zlatogur, 271 F.3d 1025, 1028 (11th Cir.2001); United States v. Carlson, 547 F.2d 1346, 1359-60 (8th Cir.1976); People v. Moreno, 160 P.3d 242, 247 (Colo. 2007); Devonshire v. United States, 691 A.2d 165, 168 (D.C.1997); People v. Stechly, 225 Ill.2d 246, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d 333, 353 (2007) (plurality opinion); Commonwealth v. Edwards, 444 Mass. 526, 830 N.E.2d 158, 170 (2005); State v. Romero, 141 N.M. 403, 156 P.3d 694, 703 (2007). But see State v. Langley, 354 N.W.2d 389, 400 (Minn.1984). Other cases have noted that Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(6), which requires intent for a forfeiture, reflects the constitutional forfeiture doctrine. See, e.g., United States v. Scott, 284 F.3d 758, 762 (7th Cir.2002); United States v. Cherry, 217 F.3d 811, 815 (10th Cir.2000). In addition, a number of states have encoded the forfeiture exception with the intent requirement intact. See, e.g., Cal. Evid.Code § 1350(a)(1) (1995); Del. R. Evid. 804(b)(6); Mich. R. Evid. 804(b)(6); N.D.R. Evid. 804(b)(6); Ohio R. Evid. 804(B)(6); Pa. R. Evid. 804(b)(6); Tenn. R. Evid. 804(b)(6); Vt. R. Evid. 804(b)(6). The court cites a number of decisions as support for its departure from the forfeiture doctrine as it has been historically applied. It says much, though, that those contrary decisions either fail to actually provide such support or are of questionable persuasive value. In United States v. Cromer , for example, the Sixth Circuit rejected the government's argument that a foolish strategic decision made by the defendant while personally conducting a cross-examination should result in a forfeiture of the confrontation right. 389 F.3d 662, 679 (6th Cir.2004). The Sixth Circuit, in the language now cited by this court, simply noted that a forfeiture may occur only upon a showing of some wrongful conduct by the defendant, such as murder or intimidation. Id. Cromer merely reaffirmed that actual wrongdoing is a necessary element of the forfeiture doctrine, and, lacking any such wrongdoing on the record, the court had no occasion to, and did not, express any opinion on whether an intent to silence need also be shown. United States v. Rouco, 765 F.2d 983 (11th Cir.1985), is similarly inapposite. In Rouco, the challenged statement was that of an undercover agent of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who had purchased illegal weapons and cocaine from the defendant and whose identity as an undercover agent had become known to the defendant shortly before the defendant shot and killed the agent. Id. at 986-87. As a result of the defendant having killed the agent, the agent was not available to testify about the defendant's illegal weapons and cocaine sales. Id. at 994. Thus, Rouco involved a classic case in which application of the forfeiture by wrongdoing is appropriate-the defendant in Rouco clearly acted upon a strong incentive to eliminate the chief witness against him related to the weapons and cocaine offenses. That incentive is at the very heart of the forfeiture doctrine, see Steele, 684 F.2d at 1201-02, and is wholly lacking in the case before us for decision. [40] The court in United States v. Garcia-Meza , on the other hand, based its decision on its belief that Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(6) provided no guidance as to the contours of the Confrontation Clause. 403 F.3d 364, 370 (6th Cir.2005). That particular conclusion is called into question, if not contradicted entirely, by the Supreme Court's contrary statements in Davis. See 126 S.Ct. at 2280; see also infra Part II.B(ii). The Wisconsin Supreme Court relied on that same problematic conclusion, and further admitted that its decision was based on a belief that the broad view of forfeiture by wrongdoing    utilized by various jurisdictions since Crawford's release is essential. State v. Jensen, 299 Wis.2d 267, 727 N.W.2d 518, 534-35 (2007) (emphasis added). A similar intent to circumvent Crawford was alluded to by the California Supreme Court. See People v. Giles, 40 Cal.4th 833, 55 Cal.Rptr.3d 133, 152 P.3d 433, 444 (2007), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 976, 169 L.Ed.2d 800 (2008) (noting that Crawford made use of the forfeiture doctrine more necessary and conclud[ing] that, to protect the integrity of their proceedings, post- Crawford courts    have correctly applied the forfeiture doctrine in a necessary, equitable manner). The Supreme Court in Davis explicitly rejected this kind of post- Crawford expansionism, and refused to vitiate constitutional guarantees when they have the effect of allowing the guilty to go free. 126 S.Ct. at 2280. The court also claims that Moreno and Stechly support the existence of a murder exception to the Confrontation Clause. Neither case, however, involved a murder. See Moreno, 160 P.3d at 243 (sexual assault); Stechly, 312 Ill. Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d at 338 (same). Thus, any support for a murder exception in either is dicta. Viewed from a historical perspective, the court's reliance on the existence of an unwritten murder exception to the Confrontation Clause is patently absurd. If such an exception existed, it would be readily apparent. It is not as if the victim's absence at murder trials constitutes a peculiarly modern problem of which the Framers of the Sixth Amendment were unaware and could never have anticipated, yet the court cites nothing in ancient continental law, English case law, the Federalist Papers, the Antifederalist writings, Crawford, Davis, the numerous scholarly articles discussing the Sixth Amendment, or any case decided in the 400 years leading up to Crawford to indicate that there was historically such a thing as a murder exception to the confrontation right. Such an omission is telling. Given the sheer number of murder trials that have come through this nation's courts, one would expect a murder exception to be solidly established if it was anything but a modern construct designed to evade Crawford. It is also curious that, despite the fact that many witness tampering cases involve the murder of the witness, see, e.g., Houlihan, 92 F.3d at 1278, the court cites no pre- Crawford witness tampering cases indicating that intent need not be shown because of the application of a murder exception. If such an exception existed pre- Crawford, it seems that more courts faced with witness tampering would have applied it, rather than go through the trouble of analyzing whether the defendant intended to silence the witness. In actuality, the court fails to identify any historical support for a murder exception to the Confrontation Clause simply because no such support exists. This is shown by the decision in Woodcock's Case, (1789) 1 Leach 500 (Eng.), which directly addressed a circumstance in which the defendant's murder had silenced the key witness against him. Woodcock stood accused of the murder of his wife, who died shortly after giving a signed statement to a magistrate. Id. at 500-01. Thus, the court was faced with an instance in which today's greatly-expanded forfeiture doctrine would have been applied, if it had been available. In addressing whether that statement could be admitted to the jury, though, the court immediately noted a pressing dilemma: the statement was not taken    in a case where the prisoner was brought before [the magistrate] in custody; the prisoner therefore had no opportunity of contradicting the facts it contains. Id. at 502. If, as the court today contends, there was a broad murder exception to the confrontation right, then surely these facts would not have posed a problem for the Woodcock court, which was itself presented with a defendant charged with murdering his spouse. As the Woodcock court acknowledged, however, the lack of cross-examination would have barred the admission of the testimony if not for the exception for dying declarations, the application of which did not turn on the prisoner's previous opportunity for cross-examination. Id. at 502-03. [41] If, in fact, there was any need for the murder exception adopted by this court, cases such as Woodcock would have recognized as much, and the dying declaration exception would have been deemed unnecessary in murder prosecutions. [42] In challenging the historical evidence, the court's reasoning is fatally flawed. First, the court cites two civil cases for the propositionone that I do not challenge  that there exists an equitable doctrine of clean hands. Neither case cited by the court, however, involves the blanket application of that doctrine to a criminal prosecution or even so much as hints that the doctrine may wholly trump the Confrontation Clause. See Glus v. Brooklyn E. Dist. Terminal, 359 U.S. 231, 231-33, 79 S.Ct. 760, 3 L.Ed.2d 770 (1959) (applying doctrine to action brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act to recover damages for an industrial disease); Wellner v. Eckstein, 105 Minn. 444, 446, 117 N.W. 830, 831 (1908) (addressing proper distribution of the property of an individual murdered by his wife). [43] Further, to invoke the clean hands doctrine would be to forget that a forfeiture is triggered not by mere wrongful conduct, but by the acts of individuals who seek to undermine the judicial process. Davis, 547 U.S. at 832-33, 126 S.Ct. 2266. [44] Relying on Lord Morley's Case and McDaniel v. State, 16 Miss. (8 S. & M.) 401 (1847), the court next claims that it is actually applying the forfeiture doctrine as it was historically understood. As to Lord Morley's Case, the court makes the error, discussed above, of reading that decision out of historical context. See Kry, supra, at 500-01 (pointing out that such a broad reading implicitly relies on an erroneous inference that cross-examination was not also a prerequisite of admissibility). The problem with the court's use of McDaniel is that, despite that decision's language seemingly implicating a forfeiture, the McDaniel court did not apply the forfeiture doctrine, resting instead on the exception for dying declarations. [45] 16 Miss. at 415, 419. In addition to denying the historical evidence, the court also relies upon a laundry list of cases decided after Crawford. I do not deny that an ongoing modern trend has been to cast aside the historical protections of the Confrontation Clause so as to ensure that those accused of murder will be convicted. See, e.g., State v. Sanchez, 341 Mont. 240, 177 P.3d 444, 454 (2008) (basing decision not on historical application of forfeiture doctrine, but on post- Crawford decisions). Despite the court's insistence, however, the contours of the Confrontation Clause and its exceptions are not determined by modern trends or majorities, but by the manner in which that clause was historically understood. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 43, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (We must    turn to the historical background of the Clause to understand its meaning.); id. at 54, 124 S.Ct. 1354 ([T]he [Sixth Amendment] is most naturally read as a reference to the right of confrontation at common law, admitting only those exceptions established at the time of the founding.). That history provides no foundation for an ill-conceived murder exception to the confrontation right. Instead, the historical evidence indicates the opposite, that the forfeiture doctrine was from its very inception a limited doctrine, one which recognized the core importance of a defendant's opportunity to question the witnesses against him.
In 1997, Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(6) was adopted, providing that the statements of an unavailable witness could be admitted against a party that has engaged or acquiesced in wrongdoing that was intended to, and did, procure the unavailability of the declarant as a witness. When that rule was adopted, the law of forfeiture was so overwhelmingly uniform that the rule's drafters never questioned the intent element. Flanagan, supra, at 1213. In particular, the drafters of the rule looked to United States v. Thevis, 665 F.2d 616 (5th Cir.1982). Flanagan, supra, at 1212. In Thevis, the Fifth Circuit recognized the dangers of an overbroad forfeiture rule as adopted by the court today, noting that the forfeiture doctrine does not permit wholesale admission of hearsay evidence when a witness is unavailable. [Rather], a hearsay statement of a potential witness is admissible only if the government shows    that (1) the defendant caused the witness' unavailability (2) for the purpose of preventing that witness from testifying at trial. Thus hearsay evidence would not be admissible simply because the witness was missing. Thevis, 665 F.2d at 633 n. 17. While the rules committee records indicate that the rule was limited to witness tampering cases, the committee declined to include an explicit reference to witness tampering because it believed the exception clearly applied only when the object was to procure the witness's absence. Flanagan, supra, at 1213. The lack of any serious debate regarding the inclusion of an intent requirement in Rule 804(b)(6) makes even more clear that such intent is an integral part of the forfeiture doctrine. Although the existence of a specific federal rule of evidence typically would have no meaningful impact on our consideration of a constitutional issue, in Davis the Supreme Court acknowledged the constitutional underpinnings of Rule 804(b)(6). In that decision, the Court observed that Rule 804(b)(6) codifies the forfeiture doctrine. 126 S.Ct. at 2280. This use of the word codifies carries particular significance. Codification is the process of compiling, arranging, and systematizing    a discrete branch of the law, into an ordered code. Black's Law Dictionary 275 (8th ed.2004). The Court's use of this particular term strongly suggests that Rule 804(b)(6) reflects the contours of the constitutional forfeiture doctrine. [46] Seeing that Rule 804(b)(6) is a codification of the constitutional rule, it would follow that the constitutional rule similarly requires the element of intent. Further, because the Davis Court addressed the forfeiture doctrine not as a matter of evidentiary law, but as a constitutional issue, its invocation of Rule 804(b)(6) is a strong indication of the proper content of the constitutional forfeiture rule. The Court clearly was not implying that a particular rule of evidence was to be applied on remand. In discussing the forfeiture rule, the Court was directing its comments to the Indiana Supreme Court, not a federal court bound by the federal rules of evidence. Nor could the Court have been interpreting Indiana evidentiary law, since it is well established that the Supreme Court does not decide state law. Cf. Fox Film Corp. v. Muller, 296 U.S. 207, 210, 56 S.Ct. 183, 80 L.Ed. 158 (1935). Given that state courts are not bound by the federal rules of evidence, the Court's mention of Rule 804(b)(6) indicates that the rule is rooted in constitutional requirements. If the Court had not meant to provide guidance on the constitutional forfeiture rule to the Indiana courts, any reference to Rule 804(b)(6) would have been unnecessary. Cf. Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 352, 110 S.Ct. 668, 107 L.Ed.2d 708 (1990) (noting that the Federal Rules of Evidence are generally nonconstitutional sources of law). Only if Rule 804(b)(6) had a constitutional basis would it have been in any way relevant to the Indiana Supreme Court's decision on remand, since Crawford generally severed confrontation analysis from the vagaries of the rules of evidence. 541 U.S. at 61. 124 S.Ct. 1354. To say that the Rule 804(b)(6) codifies the forfeiture doctrine is not to say, as this court would insist, that the federal rule itself has the power to force the common law and constitution to conform to its dictates. Stechly, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d at 351 (plurality opinion). Rather, it is to say that Rule 804(b)(6) is a reflection of the common law, to describe how the common law in fact operates. That is what a `codification' is. Id. (citation omitted). Contrary to the court's reading of Crawford, the mere fact that an exception to the confrontation right happens to be codified in the rules of evidence does not render that exception a nullity. For example, Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(2) codifies the dying declaration hearsay exception, which the Supreme Court indicated may itself be a historical exception to the confrontation right. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 56 n. 6, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (The one deviation we have found involves dying declarations. The existence of that exception as a general rule of criminal hearsay law cannot be disputed.). Properly read, then, nothing in Crawford bars our acknowledgement of the constitutional basis of Rule 804(b)(6).