Court Opinion

ID: 9785537
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:10:39.288643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:28.565562
License: Public Domain

CHAPEL, J.,
dissenting.
[ 1 Wortham committed crimes, a series of rapes and sexual abuse of a child, while *207under a suspended sentence for a different crime, robbery with a firearm. The State sought to revoke his suspended sentence based on the sex offense charges. At the revocation hearing the State relied on the transcript of the preliminary hearing held on the new charges, along with a DNA paternity report suggesting that during the commission of the sex offenses Wortham sired a child with one of the victims. Wortham objected to the use of the preliminary hearing transcript without any prior showing that the witnesses whose testimony it contained were unavailable for the revocation hearing. The majority concludes that this procedure was not error. I disagree.
T2 It is true that revocation proceedings offer the defendant fewer procedural protections than those afforded in a criminal trial.1 However, a defendant in a revocation hearing has the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses, unless there is a specific finding of good cause for refusing the right to confrontation.2 No such finding was made here. The majority engages in what appears to me to be a wholly pointless discussion of whether this right falls under the Sixth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court has indicated that it is part of the due process required in revocation hearings under the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore and more importantly, Oklahoma law provides a separate right to confrontation in a revocation hearing.3 That is sufficient.
3 I agree that affidavits, letters and other material which might be inadmissible in a criminal trial may be introduced in a revocation proceeding.4 However, generally speaking, the State cannot admit a preliminary hearing transcript against a defendant without a good faith showing that, after exercise of due diligence, the witnesses whose testimony it contains are unavailable.5 Even in revocation hearings, due process requires some right of confrontation. This rule is designed to protect that right, and this Court has in the past applied it to revocation proceedings.6 The majority cites nothing which justifies a departure from this rule.
1 4 The majority relies on Gilbert, in which we held that a transcript of the preliminary hearing held on the revocation proceedings was admissible without a showing that witnesses were unavailable.7 Here, the transcript admitted into evidence at the revocation hearing was of the preliminary hearing on the newly charged sex offenses. The majority suggests this factual difference has no legal distinction. I cannot agree.
T5 The issues in a revocation hearing differ from those in a criminal proceeding, such as a preliminary hearing designed to determine whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime was committed, and that the defendant committed it. In fact, it is in part on that difference that the lesser protection afforded criminal defendants in a revocation proceeding depends. Conceivably, the questions asked in cross-examination during such a preliminary hearing on a new criminal charge may differ from questions asked the same witnesses in a revocation hearing. In any event, while Wortham had an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses on the sex offense charges, he had no opportunity to *208cross-examine witnesses in the revocation proceedings. That is, he had no opportunity to confront the witnesses against him in this case before his suspended sentence was revoked. By contrast, the defendant in Gilbert had the chance to cross-examine the witnesses against him in the preliminary revocagtion hearing-the same revocation case which resulted in the final revocation hearing. This Court held that, in those narrow cireumstances where the transcript the State sought to introduce concerned the same case as the revocation, no good faith showing of unavailability was necessary. Those cireum-stances are not present here, and I do not believe Gilbert applies.
T6 Because I interpret Gilbert according to its facts, and in light of the settled law at the time it was decided, I do not believe Hilbert conflicts with our previous cases. The State did not seek to introduce a tran-seript of a proceeding in the same revocation case in Allison, Woods or Moore. Consequently, this Court applied the settled law that introduction of a transcript from a different court proceeding must be accompanied by a showing that the witnesses were unavailable. Gilbert discussed the unusual situation where the defendant had already cross-examined the revocation hearing witnesses about the revocation case, and that questioning was memorialized in the transcript introduced by the State. This complements rather than conflicts with the settled case law. I believe this, rather than some oversight on the Court's part, is why Gilbert did not overturn our previous cases, as the majority does today. Taken together our case law upholds a defendant's statutory and due process right to confrontation in a revocation hearing by showing witness unavailability, while recognizing that right may be satisfied by the chance to cross-examine the witnesses in a case in an earlier proceeding in that same case. I would apply this settled law, require a showing of witness unavailability, and grant relief.

. Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 782, 93 S.Ct. 1756, 1760, 36 L.Ed.2d 656 (1973); Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 480, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2600, 33 LEd.2d 484 (1972).

. Gagnon, 411 U.S. at 782, 93 S.Ct. at 1759-60; Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 489, 92 S.Ct. at 2604.

. 22 0.$.Supp.2005, § 991b (D).

. Gilbert v. State, 1988 OK CR 283, 765 P.2d 807, 809; Gagnon, 411 U.S. at 782 n. 5, 93 S.Ct. at 1760 n. 5; Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 489, 92 S.Ct. at 2604. This is also acceptable under our statutes, as the Oklahoma Evidence Code does not apply to revocation proceedings. 12 O.S.Supp.2002, § 2103(B)(2).

. Gilbert, 765 P.2d at 809; Davis v. State, 1988 OK CR 73, 753 P.2d 388, 391.

. Allison v. State, 1977 OK CR 130, 562 P.2d 883, 885-86; Woods v. State, 1974 OK CR 162, 526 P.2d 944, 947; Moore v.State, 1973 OK CR 141, 507 P.2d 1290, 1292.

. Gilbert, 765 P.2d at 809. The majority also cites an unpublished case, Garcia v. State, No. RE-2006-885 (Okl.Cr.June 29, 2007) (not for publication}. Garcia merely cites Gilbert and finds that introduction of a preliminary hearing transcript in a revocation hearing was not error. As Garcia does not even fully discuss the Gilbert holding, nor cite Allison, Woods or Moore, I find it unhelpful and unpersuasive.