Opinion ID: 2582377
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fields' confrontation clause claims

Text: Addressing Fields' confrontation clause claims, the ICA first quoted at length from Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), and Haili for the proposition that the prosecution must demonstrate that the hearsay statements of an unavailable declarant bear adequate indicia of reliability in order for those statements to be admissible as substantive evidence without infringing upon the protections afforded criminal defendants by the confrontation clauses of the United States and Hawai`i Constitutions. The ICA subsequently acknowledged that Crawford fundamentally altered the analysis by holding that the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution precludes admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 53-54, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Based upon Crawford, as well as a lengthy excerpt from United States v. Owens, 484 U.S. 554, 108 S.Ct. 838, 98 L.Ed.2d 951 (1988), the ICA concluded that the family court did not violate Fields' sixth amendment right of confrontation by permitting Staggs' out-of-court statements insofar as Staggs both appeared at trial and testified. The ICA also concluded that, with respect to the confrontation clause incorporated into the Hawai`i Constitution, Haili, not Crawford, was the applicable precedent. Accordingly the ICA determined that, pursuant to Haili, any objection by Fields' counsel to Staggs' out-of-court statements could have been validly denied.