Opinion ID: 1946452
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Failure to Conduct an Evidentiary Hearing

Text: The defendant argues that the trial justice abused his discretion when he failed to require sworn testimony from the officers who searched for Bogan. According to Ramirez, this Court has not been confronted with a finding of unavailability in the absence of an evidentiary hearing. However, we have never held that a party's assertion that a witness is unavailable must be supported by sworn testimony, nor does the case law cited by the defendant support such a contention. In State v. Hannagan, 473 A.2d 291, 292 (R.I.1984), a witness became physically ill on the witness stand and left the courthouse. The trial justice ruled that the witness was unavailable based upon the prosecution's representations as well as his own personal observations. Id. at 292-93. We reversed and concluded that in instances of unavailability because of illness, expert testimony is necessary. Id. at 293. We declared that [o]nly by insisting upon competent proof of a witness's unavailability for the purposes of invoking the prior-testimony exception to the hearsay rule can we adequately ensure that the fundamental guarantees of confrontation and cross-examination of one's accusers will be preserved for an accused. Id. at 293-94 (citing State v. Scholz, 432 A.2d 763, 767 (Me.1981)). Here, the witness's unavailability was two-foldflight from the courthouse and a Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify absent a grant of immunity. While we held in Hannagan that a trial justice is not equipped to evaluate the nature or extent of an illness in the absence of competent medical opinion, id. at 293, such is not the case when a reluctant and uncooperative witness flees the courthouse in the middle of the trial. Although in Sosa, 839 A.2d at 525, the trial justice entertained testimony from the police officer charged with searching for the missing witness and this Court upheld the decision declaring the witness unavailable, we did not hold, nor do we do so today, that sworn testimony is an essential precedent to a finding of unavailability. In this case, unlike Sosa, the witness had appeared and testified in a mid-trial hearing and the trial justice was privy to the succeeding events as they were unfolding. After Bogan disappeared, the state commenced a search and apprised the trial justice of its efforts. The trial justice declared, on more than one occasion, that he was satisfied with the state's efforts to procure Bogan's attendance at the trial. We are not persuaded that an evidentiary hearing would alter this finding.