Opinion ID: 1464517
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Former Testimony and the Right to Confrontation

Text: The most recent pronouncement by the Supreme Court on the constitutionally improper denial of a defendant's opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him is Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 106 S.Ct. 1431, 89 L.Ed.2d 674 (1986), where the Court stated: While some constitutional claims by their nature require a showing of prejudice with respect to the trial as a whole, see e.g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 [104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674] (1984) (ineffective assistance of counsel), the focus of the Confrontation Clause is on individual witnesses. Accordingly, the focus of the prejudice inquiry in determining whether the confrontation right has been violated must be on the particular witness, not on the outcome of the entire trial. It would be a contradiction in terms to conclude that a defendant denied any opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him nonetheless had been afforded his right to confront[ation] because use of that right would not have affected the jury's verdict. We think that a criminal defendant states a violation of the Confrontation Clause by showing that he was prohibited from engaging in otherwise appropriate cross-examination designed to show a prototypical form of bias on the part of the witness, and thereby to expose to the jury the facts from which jurors ... could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. [308, 318 [94 S.Ct. 1105, 1111, 39 L.Ed.2d 347] (1974).] Id. at 1436. The Court concluded, however, that such Confrontation Clause errors are subject to a harmless error analysis, Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), i.e., whether the Court may confidently say, on the whole record, that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Van Arsdall, supra, 106 S.Ct. at 1436. The admissibility of Farley's testimony for use by the government against appellant is beset with the constitutional questions regarding the right of the accused to confront the witnesses against him in accordance with the Sixth Amendment. [6] True, it could broadly be said that the former testimony here was a hearsay statement which should not have been admitted into evidence. Yet our principal focus is on the denial of cross-examination which amounts to a denial of appellant's constitutional right to confrontation. When a hearsay declarant is not present for cross-examination at trial, the Confrontation Clause and the common law requires a showing of reliability and unavailability. Jones I, supra, 441 A.2d at 1006 (citations omitted). Unavailability is not at issue in this case. [7] Concededly, the trial court properly found unavailability here based on Farley's refusal to testify. We focus instead on the question of reliability. The Supreme Court has held: Reliability can be inferred without more in a case where the evidence falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception. In other cases, the evidence must be excluded, at least absent a showing of particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2539, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). Where the Roberts indicia of reliability are present, i.e., where hearsay evidence is admissible because it falls squarely within an exception, Confrontation Clause problems are avoided, id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539, and this court has neither expanded this rule nor defined other guarantees of trustworthiness that might otherwise render the evidence reliable in the absence of a firmly rooted hearsay exception. The government contends that simply because Farley's statements were made under oath and there may have been similar motives and interests to impeach Farley on the part of Hawthorne and Myrick during their cross-examination, that certain indicia of reliability are present in satisfaction of the Roberts test. [8] However, these are merely two of four elements necessary to establish the former testimony exception, as discussed above. Equally important are the remaining two necessary elements: that the witness is unavailable and that the party against whom the testimony is now offered had the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant at the former proceeding. See Henson, supra, 399 A.2d at 16.