Opinion ID: 1785298
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Equity and the Confrontation Right

Text: The court also distorts the Supreme Court's statement in Crawford that the forfeiture doctrine is an equitable principle. In doing so, the court ignores the fact that the equitable balancing at the heart of the forfeiture doctrine is meant to respond to a particular harmthe subversion of the judicial processnot merely the general problems that arise whenever the absence of a witness makes it more difficult to obtain a conviction. While the equitable balance clearly cuts in favor of preventing defendants from using the Sixth Amendment to exploit the judicial process, when there has been no showing that the defendant has manipulated the system to gain an unfair advantage at trial, there is no equitable interest to be balanced. See Moreno, 160 P.3d at 246 (To find the forfeiture of a protection so integral to the truth-seeking process, quite apart from any design or attempt by the defendant to subvert that process, would    divorce the forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine from its very reason for existing   .). That is to say, without a showing having been made that the defendant has intentionally attempted to subvert the justice process, a court has simply no reason to engage in an equitable balancing involving such a core constitutional right. See Stechly, 312 Ill.Dec. 268, 870 N.E.2d at 349 (plurality opinion) (observing that the rationale behind the forfeiture rule is inapplicable when defendant lacked intent to silence, as it is impossible to deter those who do not act intentionally). When the concerns attendant to witness tampering cases are set aside, the court's unspoken equitable interest boils down to this: Crawford has made it substantially more difficult to admit the statements of murder victims at trial, and without such statements, murder convictions are harder to obtain. The Supreme Court, however, has already made it clear that this interest is insufficient to justify the wholesale evisceration of the Confrontation Clause. When the Davis Court was asked in no uncertain terms to allow greater flexibility in the use of testimonial evidence in domestic violence cases, the Court flatly refused. Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2279-80. That refusal was not because the Court was unaware of the difficulties prosecutors face in cases involving domestic violence, however. In fact, the amici in Davis presented a substantial body of statistical evidence showing Crawford's negative impact on domestic-violence prosecutions throughout the nation, and explicitly noted that the forfeiture doctrine's intent requirement poses a barrier to the successful prosecution of violent offenders. See generally Brief of Amici Curiae the National Network to End Domestic Violence, et. al. in Support of Respondents, Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006). Faced with these facts, the Court nevertheless refused to allow emotion to control its constitutional interpretation of the forfeiture doctrine, stating: [Domestic violence] is notoriously susceptible to intimidation or coercion of the victim to ensure that she does not testify at trial. When this occurs, the Confrontation Clause gives the criminal a windfall. We may not, however, vitiate constitutional guarantees when they have the effect of allowing the guilty to go free. But when defendants seek to undermine the judicial process by procuring or coercing silence from witnesses and victims, the Sixth Amendment does not require courts to acquiesce. While defendants have no duty to assist the State in proving their guilt, they do have the duty to refrain from acting in ways that destroy the integrity of the criminal-trial system. Davis, 126 S.Ct. at 2279-80 (citation omitted). By focusing on those who seek to undermine the judicial process, the Court made clear the unique, specific harm that the forfeiture doctrine is crafted to prevent: intentional interference with the judicial process. It is hard to misconstrue this statement as mere dicta, or as leaving the door open for the expansion of the forfeiture doctrine that this court now embracesthe Court was faced with an explicit request to allow a broader forfeiture exception to Crawford, and it responded by making clear that no court has the power to vitiate constitutional guarantees simply because they have the effect of allowing the guilty to go free. Id. at 2280. When the nation's highest court makes clear that it will not expand the forfeiture doctrine, it is simply beyond our authority to act in its stead. Nonetheless, both this court and Sanchez, 177 P.3d at 456, read a key phrase out of Davis so as to justify the creation of a murder exception, arguing that murder necessarily undermine[s] the judicial process and its search for truth and thus justifies the application of a forfeiture. Even if I were to assume that the absence of a witness sufficiently undermines the search for truth so as to justify encroachment on constitutional rights, neither Sanchez nor this court explain how a charge of murder, without more, shows that a defendant sought to undermine the judicial process. Without that crucial element, no forfeiture can result under a fair reading of Davis. It is but speculation on the court's part that Her sought to undermine the judicial process, unless the court would go so far as to claim that a murder defendant's mere assertion of a confrontation objection is sufficient to show that he seeks to undermine the judicial process. Any implicit invocation of Her's intent to prevent Vang's testimony is particularly misplaced here, considering that such intent is not a necessary element of domestic abuse homicide or second-degree murder that had to be found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt when rendering its verdict. See Minn.Stat. § 609.185(a)(6) (requiring sole mental element be that crime be committed with extreme indifference to human life); State v. Bradford, 618 N.W.2d 782, 800 (Minn.2000) (same); see also Minn.Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2006) (requiring only intent to cause death). For the court to make its own finding of an intent to prevent testimony on this record is both improper as a matter of law and contrary to the evidence. [47] Finally, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the breadth of the court's murder exception, which is astounding. The court, quoting Sanchez, 177 P.3d at 456, notes that the natural result of a deliberate killing is always that the victim is unable to testify. The court further notes, In that circumstance, where the defendant's `intentional criminal act results in a victim-declarant's death,' the defendant will benefit from his `wrongdoing if the defendant can use the death to exclude the victim-declarant's otherwise admissible testimony, regardless of whether the defendant specifically intended to silence the victim-declarant.'  As a result, the court, in agreement with the Montana Supreme Court, concludes that `[s]uch a result undermines the judicial process and threatens the integrity of court proceedings, and [that,] though courts may not `vitiate constitutional guarantees when they have the effect of allowing the guilty to go free,' nor must they acquiesce in the destruction of the criminal-trial system's integrity.' If every murder undermines the judicial process and threatens the integrity of court proceedings as the court concludes, does the murder defendant also forfeit his or her rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as well as other rights under the Sixth Amendment? Does an individual's attempt to hide or destroy a murder weapon result, on equitable grounds, in a forfeiture of the right to contest an illegal search of that individual's home for that weapon? Or, put in this court's broad terms, is it to be understood that every invocation of a constitutional right, by a defendant of whose guilt a court is certain, threatens the integrity of the judicial system? When the court's reasoning is followed to its logical conclusion, the only answer to these questions is yes. Only by placing punishment of the guilty above the rights enshrined in the Constitution, however, might we in good conscience abide by such an answer. But, as the late Justice Brennan said so well: This denigration of constitutional guarantees and constitutionally mandated procedures, relegated by the Court to the status of mere utilitarian tools, must appall citizens taught to expect judicial respect and support for their constitutional rights. Even if punishment of the guilty were society's highest value  and procedural safeguards denigrated to this endin a constitution that a majority of the Members of this Court would prefer, that is not the ordering of priorities under the Constitution forged by the Framers, and this Court's sworn duty is to uphold that Constitution and not to frame its own. The procedural safeguards mandated in the Framers' Constitution are not admonitions to be tolerated only to the extent they serve functional purposes that ensure that the guilty are punished and the innocent freed; rather, every guarantee enshrined in the Constitution, our basic charter and the guarantor of our most precious liberties, is by it endowed with an independent vitality and value, and this Court is not free to curtail those constitutional guarantees even to punish the most obviously guilty. Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 523-24, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976) (Brennan, J., dissenting). This court, charged with the duty of protecting constitutional rights, treads a dangerous path when it proclaims that a defendant's exercise of a constitutional right undermines the integrity of the judicial system.