Opinion ID: 2569983
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The district court erred by admitting Grijalva's preliminary hearing testimony

Text: Hernandez argues that the district court erred by hearing the State's untimely motion, unsupported by an affidavit or sworn testimony, to admit the preliminary hearing testimony of the absent witness in violation of Eighth Judicial District Court Rules (EDCR) 3.20(a) [1] and 3.28 [2] and NRS 174.125. [3] He then argues that even if the State's unsworn statements regarding the measures taken to procure Grijalva's attendance were properly considered, the district court erred by failing to require the State to exercise sufficient efforts to compel Grijalva's attendance. Testimony given during a preliminary hearing on a criminal matter may be used at trial on that matter under NRS 171.198 and NRS 51.325 if three preconditions exist: first, that the defendant was represented by counsel at the preliminary hearing; second, that counsel cross-examined the witness; third, that the witness is shown to be actually unavailable at the time of trial. [4] Grijalva's unavailability is the only one of these requirements at issue in this case. [5] A witness may be unavailable if he or she is [a]bsent from the hearing and beyond the jurisdiction of the court to compel appearance and the proponent of his [or her] statement has exercised reasonable diligence but has been unable to procure his [or her] attendance. [6] We have interpreted the requirement that the State exercise[ ] reasonable diligence to mean that the State must make reasonable efforts to procure a witness's attendance at trial before that witness may be declared unavailable. [7] In this case, we first consider whether such assignments of error should be reviewed as mixed questions of law and fact. Then, we determine whether untimely motions for the admission of preliminary hearing testimony must be supported by affidavits or sworn testimony demonstrating good cause and whether the State's efforts to procure Grijalva's attendance in this case were reasonable.