Opinion ID: 1835563
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Heading: Application of Ohio v. Roberts in Johnson v. State

Text: The majority states that the Court of Criminal Appeals in  Johnson v. State [, 623 So.2d 444, 447-48 (Ala.Crim.App.1993)], set[] a high standard for proving that the State exercised due diligence in its attempt to procure the presence of a witness. 727 So.2d at 134. The majority states that in Johnson the State sufficiently proved the unavailability of the witness by presenting the testimony of multiple witnesses and evidence of extensive follow-up efforts. 727 So.2d at 127. The majority then concludes that because the State, in this case, presented the testimony of only one person and did not follow up by seeking a warrant for Williams's arrest, it failed to meet the heightened Confrontation Clause standard set in Johnson. I do not agree that Johnson modified the admissibility standard established by the Supreme Court in Roberts. The sum total of the Johnson court's legal analysis of the admission of testimony from the absent witness in that case is as follows: A party seeking to introduce a witness's testimony from a prior proceeding ... must establish the unavailability of the witness and the reasons therefor. Lamar v. State, 578 So.2d 1382 (Ala.Crim.App.1991), cert. denied, Ex parte Lamar, 596 So.2d 659 (Ala.1991). This predicate is fulfilled when the party offering the evidence establishes that it has exercised due diligence in obtaining the witness, but without success. See Matkins v. State, 521 So.2d 1040, 1041-42 (Ala.Crim.App.1987). The sufficiency of proof for establishing the predicate of unavailability is left to the sound discretion of the trial court. Nolen v. State, 469 So.2d 1326, 1328 (Ala.Crim. App.1985). Here, the trial court ruled that the State had exercised due diligence in trying to procure the witness. The trial court made this determination after a thorough examination of the matter. We cannot hold that the trial court abused its discretion. Johnson, 623 So.2d at 447-48. This language quoted from Johnson does not purport to set, establish, modify, or replace any standard. Instead, in Johnson the Court of Criminal Appeals cites Matkins, 521 So.2d at 1041, that expressly relied on the standard established in Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597, which struck the balance between the competing interests of the criminal defendant and the People. It would be strange indeed, for Johnson, which ultimately relied on Roberts, to silently establish a new multiple-witness/follow-up exhaustion standard that the facts in Roberts itself would not meet. At most, Johnson is an application of the federal standard to facts that were more than sufficient to meet that standard. By the majority's logic, a holding, for example, that video-tape and eyewitness testimony is sufficient evidence to support a conviction of a criminal offense would set a heightened evidentiary standard requiring the reversal of all future convictions that were not equally supported by videotape and eyewitness testimony. This has never been the law. Compare McLeod v. State, 627 So.2d 1066 (Ala.Crim.App.1993) (upholding a defendant's conviction on a controlled substance offense based on videotape and eyewitness testimony), with Gary v. State, 473 So.2d 604 (Ala.Crim.App.1985) (upholding a defendant's conviction on a controlled substance offense based on the physical proximity of the defendant and the defendant's possessions to the controlled substance). Thus, the Court of Criminal Appeals did not expressly set a new Sixth Amendment standard in Johnson, and the argument that it implicitly did so is untenable. Ultimately, it is the Supreme Court of the United States, and not the Court of Criminal Appeals, or this Court, that sets the standard for enforcing the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. See Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. (1 Wheat.) 304, 4 L.Ed. 97 (1816). The majority's interpretation of the Confrontation Clause to require multiple witnesses and the exhaustion of almost all follow-up opportunities is a dramatic departure from the interpretation of that Clause by the Supreme Court of the United States. The majority effectively restrikes the balance established in Roberts for the admissibility of the preliminary-hearing testimony of an absent witness, favoring the interest of the criminal defendant at the expense of the interests of the People. I dissent. HOOPER, C.J., and MADDOX and HOUSTON, JJ., concur.