Opinion ID: 782204
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Clearly Established Supreme Court Law on Waiver of Cross-Examination Through Misconduct

Text: 118 The Supreme Court has considered only one case involving a waiver through misconduct of the right to cross-examine. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 159, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1878); Kroger, supra, at 846 (Despite a sharp split between the circuits on the manner in which courts should apply the rule, the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to hear contemporary confrontation waiver cases.) (footnotes omitted). 19 Since Reynolds, the Court has decided only two other cases involving a waiver of the right to cross-examine, and neither involved misconduct. See Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 5, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314 (1966) (petitioner did not intelligently and knowingly waive his right to cross-examine witnesses, despite his counsel's representations); Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 452-53, 32 S.Ct. 250, 56 L.Ed. 500 (1912) (defendant waived Confrontation Clause objections to introduction of prior testimony because his own lawyer introduced the prior testimony about which he complained on appeal). 119 Reynolds remains the governing Supreme Court case on waiver of the right to cross-examine a witness through misconduct, although this doctrine has been more fully developed in the federal courts of appeals. In Reynolds, after a finding that the defendant had procured the witness's unavailability, the Court upheld, over a Confrontation Clause challenge, the admission of prior witness testimony from a trial of the same defendant on the same charge. The Court relied in large part upon the fact that the accused was present at the time the testimony was given, and had full opportunity of cross-examination. 98 U.S. at 161. As a result, the Court concluded, [t]his brings the case clearly within the well-established rules. Id. (citing 1 Wharton on Evidence § 177). Because this witness did not testify at the second trial, cross-examination of a testifying witness was not at issue. Although the courts of appeals, including our court, have since expanded the types of testimony which will be admitted, see, e.g., Aguiar, 975 F.2d at 47, the holding of Reynolds itself is narrow. And clearly established Federal law under § 2254(d)(1) refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta of the Supreme Court's decisions. Williams, 529 U.S. at 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495. 120 The Supreme Court has never dealt with this precise question of the scope of a waiver of the right to cross-examine a witness because of misconduct, when the witness actually takes the stand at trial. Although our task is to determine whether the state courts reasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court law, we think it appropriate to make some examination of how the federal courts of appeals have analyzed the issue. Cruz v. Miller, 255 F.3d 77, 85 (2d Cir.2001). Like the Supreme Court, no federal court of appeals has faced the waiver issue in this particular situation: where the witness actually takes the stand at trial. The trial court reached its conclusion based on our decision in U.S. v. Aguiar, 975 F.2d 45 (2d Cir.1992), concluding that the scope of waiver was broader under the law of our circuit than under New York state law. See Cotto, 642 N.Y.S.2d at 796 (citing Aguiar, 975 F.2d at 47). We agree with petitioner that the trial court, and implicitly the Appellate Division, improperly read Aguiar as precluding cross-examination in these circumstances. 121 In Aguiar, the prosecution had proven in a hearing, like the Sirois hearing in this case, that the defendant had intimidated a prosecution witness into not testifying at trial. See Aguiar, 975 F.2d at 47. Nonetheless, defendant challenged the admission of the witness's statements to law enforcement officers on the ground that only sworn testimony, such as testimony before a grand jury, could be admissible under the Confrontation Clause, even if the defendant had forfeited his confrontation right through misconduct. Id. We rejected this contention, holding that forfeiture of confrontation rights extended for all purposes, referring to both sworn and unsworn statements. Id. Because the witness in that case never took the stand, the issue of preclusion of cross-examination of an actual prosecution witness at trial was not before the Aguiar court. To the extent that Aguiar can be read more broadly, it must be considered dicta. 20