Opinion ID: 1452791
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The State's Response

Text: The state attempts to debunk Vasquez's impeachment claim by arguing that [t]he Supreme Court has never held that cross-examination with regard to credibility, as opposed to bias, is constitutionally protected. The state points to Davis and Van Arsdall, but the passage from Davis we block-quote above draws no meaningful distinction between the constitutional status of cross-examination as to bias and that of cross-examination as to credibility or character for truthfulness. It simply says that impeachment based on past crimes is [o]ne way of discrediting the witness  and a traditional one at that  while probing bias is [a] more particular attack on the witness' credibility. Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105. That these concepts are separately identifiable says nothing about their relative importance in our constitutional system. And we give little weight to Justice Stewart's caution in concurrence that the Davis majority neither h[eld] nor suggest[ed] that the Constitution confers a right in every case to impeach the general credibility of a witness through cross examination about his past delinquency adjudications or criminal convictions. 415 U.S. at 321, 94 S.Ct. 1105 (Stewart, J., concurring). No other Justice joined this concurrence, and as stated above, the six in the majority drew no meaningful distinction between bias and credibility. Though the particular facts of Davis and Van Arsdall implicated only bias, [4] the holdings of those cases clearly apply to both bias and credibility. [5] The state also points to this circuit's decision in Boggs v. Collins, 226 F.3d 728 (6th Cir.2000). In that rape prosecution, the state trial court limited the scope of defense counsel's cross-examination to the victim's past drug use, history of mental illness, and recollection of the attack, id. at 732, while barring inquiry into her previous false accusations of rape (questioning designed to impugn her character for truthfulness). Id. at 733. Following his conviction, the defendant brought a habeas corpus action, arguing the exclusion of evidence of past false rape accusations violated the Confrontation Clause. Id. at 735. The Boggs panel found that Davis compelled the conclusion that the defendant suffered no Confrontation Clause violation, reasoning that Davis had distinguished between a `general attack' on the credibility of a witness . . . and a more particular attack on credibility `directed toward revealing possible biases. . . .' See id. at 736 (quoting Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105). It opined that Justice Stewart's concurrence underscored that the Confrontation Clause was implicated only because Davis was seeking to show bias or prejudice. Id. at 737 (emphasis added). The panel then opined that Van Arsdall and subsequent Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit cases have adhered to the distinction . . . drawn by Justice Stewart. . . . Id. Finally, the panel discussed cases from other circuits that supposedly take the same position. Id. at 738 (collecting cases). Boggs is not dispositive for several reasons. First, and most obviously, it unquestioningly accepts Justice Stewart's attempt to commandeer the majority opinion in Davis. Second, Boggs, like most of the cases it marshals, was a rape-shield case where the Confrontation Clause arguably provides defendants less protection than in other cases. That is, the right to confront and to cross-examine is not absolute and may, in appropriate cases, bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 295, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973). Rape-shield laws vindicate a legitimate state interest in encourag[ing] victims of sexual misconduct to institute and to participate in legal proceedings against alleged offenders. Cf., e.g., Fed.R.Evid. 412 advisory committee's note. But such a legitimate interest must be very substantial to trump the defendant's right to confront witnesses by traditional means: in Davis, the Court rejected as insufficient the state's asserted interest in the rehabilitative goals of juvenile correctional procedures. 415 U.S. at 319-20, 94 S.Ct. 1105. In Vasquez's case, there is no state interest asserted in preventing impeachment of hearsay testimony by means that would have been permitted had the declarant testified at trial. On the contrary, the rules of evidence generally allow this practice. [6] Third, Boggs is materially distinguishable on its facts. The Boggs state trial court actually permitted the defense to cross-examine the witness on numerous subjects at trial  just not past false rape allegations. 226 F.3d at 732-33. Therefore, Boggs is better seen as a case about the court's broad discretion to limit the scope of cross-examination to prevent undue harassment and the like. See, e.g., Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105; Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. at 679, 106 S.Ct. 1431. The trial ruling here, however, prevented Vasquez's counsel from doing anything to challenge Demond Brown's hearsay testimony at trial. For these reasons, we reject the state's argument and conclude that the state courts' failure to recognize that the exclusion of Vasquez's past-crimes impeachment evidence violated his Confrontation Clause rights represents an unreasonable application of Supreme Court jurisprudence, most notably Davis v. Alaska .