Court Opinion

ID: 9676505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:25:54.176759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.993003
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, concurring. Although I agree with the result, I write a concurring opinion primarily because of the misleading statement of the majority: If we were to terminate this portion of the opinion at this point, we might be interpreted as suggesting that in any case where the witness is present for the trial his out-of-court statements may be substituted for live testimony as long as there are indicia of reliability of the prior statement. We do not mean to do that. The opinion actually accomplishes exactly what it says it does not do. But in the words of Humpty Dumpty—the words mean what the majority says they mean. The opinion does not hold that in all cases where a witness is present at trial his prior out-of-court statements may be substituted for live testimony. However, the opinion does hold that, pursuant to A.R.E. 803(25), in all cases where the declarant is the alleged child victim of sexual/physical abuse and is present for the trial, his out-of-court statements may be substituted for live testimony as long as there are indicia of reliability of the prior statements. The alleged child victim was present in the case under consideration and was in fact questioned by defense counsel during the course of the trial.The majority misinterprets Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980). There the transcript of the witness’ preliminary hearing testimony was allowed into evidence because the witness was unavailable at the trial. The former testimony was taken subject to the full right of confrontation, i.e. taken under oath and subject to full and effective cross-examination. Further, the state had made substantial efforts to compel the witness’ attendance at the trial of Roberts. The thrust of Roberts was that the right to confrontation was not violated because the witness could not be located and the evidence indicated that her prior testimony bore sufficient indicia of reliability that it afforded the trier of fact a satisfactory basis for the determination of the truth of the former testimony. After canvassing the many previous cases that had examined the relationship between the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the many exceptions to the hearsay rule, Justice Blackmun, writing for the Court, stated: The Confrontation Clause operates in two separate ways to restrict the range of admissible hearsay. First, in conformance with the Framers’ preference for face-to-face accusation, the Sixth Amendment establishes a rule of necessity. In the usual case (including cases where prior cross-examination has occurred), the prosecution must either produce, or demonstrate the unavailability of, the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant. . . . The second aspect operates once a witness is shown to be unavailable. Reflecting its underlying purpose to augment accuracy in the factfinding process by ensuring the defendant an effective means to test adverse evidence, the Clause countenances only hearsay marked with such trustworthiness that “there is no material departure from the reason of the general rule.” The testimony admitted in Roberts included questioning of the witness by Roberts’ attorney. Confrontation was not only afforded, it was utilized. What the majority in the present decision appears to overlook is that in Roberts the witness or declarant was, in fact, unavailable. The majority at one point, without expressly doing so, attempts to distinguish Roberts on the basis that in the present case the declarant was not unavailable. It is precisely because the witness was not unavailable that the testimony should not have been admitted. To hold otherwise flies right smack dab in the face of both the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the common law rule against the admission of hearsay. The Arkansas act attempts to allow any and all (the more the better?) recitations of prior statements even though the declarant is available for trial and cross-examination. Neither this Court nor the General Assembly possesses the power to nullify this fundamental principle of Anglo-American law against the admission of such evidence. The majority reaches its conclusion in the present case by analogy to U.S. v. Inadi,_U.S._, 106 S.Ct. 1121 (1986), where the statements in dispute were those of an unindicted co-conspirator. The admission of the out-of-court statements of a co-conspirator is founded on the concept of agency. See A.R.E. 801(d)(2)(v). To compare the out-of-court statements of an alleged child abuse victim with the statements of co-conspirators in a drug ring seems, at best, rather strained. The Court in Inadi stated: If the declarant is available and the same information can be presented to the trier of fact in the form of live testimony, with full cross-examination and the opportunity to view the demeanor of the declarant, there is little justification for relying on the weaker version. When two versions of the same evidence are available, longstanding principles of the law of hearsay, applicable as well to Confrontation Clause analysis, favor the better evidence. The Court did not reject the confrontation requirement but rather reaffirmed it in the language quoted above. The opinion further stated: “These same [confrontation] principles do not apply to co-conspirators’ statements.” The opinion expressly distinguished Roberts where it stated: The admission of co-conspirators’ declarations into evidence thus actually furthers the “Confrontation Clause’s very mission” which is to “advance ‘the accuracy of the truth-determining process in criminal trials.’ ” Moreover, the reasoning behind the decision in Inadi has been brought into question by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cruz v. New York,_U.S__, 107 S.Ct. 1714 (1987). Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, held that where a nontestifying codefendant’s confession incriminating the defendant is not directly admissible against the defendant,. . . the Confrontation Clause bars its admission at their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed not to consider it against the defendant, and even if the defendant’s own confession is admitted against him. Ohio v. Roberts, supra, is still valid law on this subject according to the opinion in Kentucky v. Stincer,_U.S__, 107 S.Ct. 2658 (1987), where the Court considered a Kentucky statute which closely resembles A.R.E. 803(25). In Stincer the trial court conducted an in chambers hearing, at which the accused was excluded, to determine the competency of two child victim witnesses. The accused’s counsel was present at the hearing. The hearing was held out of the presence of the jury and the defense counsel was allowed full cross-examination. The Stincer holding is limited to the question of whether due process and confrontation were denied the appellant by excluding him from the hearing at which the reliability-credibility of the seven and eight year old victims was determined. The Court held that the accused’s rights were not violated. I agree with the decision. Both reliability and confrontation were preserved. The majority opinion in this case preserves neither. I recognize the child sexual molestation problem in this country is serious and demands immediate attention, not only from the courts but from the legislature and the general public. The effort to deal with this problem must be undertaken with all deliberate speed. However, deliberate is the word of caution which we must always keep in mind. History has proven time and again that decisions hastily made in the heat of anger, or in a state of excitement, are frequently found to have been unwise. Children are apt to be confused on cross-examination by a lawyer. They frequently cannot recall exact dates, places and complete details of prior experiences. They may be reluctant or scared, or they may be vindictive. Also, children sometimes respond in a manner intended to please the parent or interviewer. These are but a few of the matters which must be considered in deciding the trustworthiness of hearsay statements. These problems must be resolved by the simple process of the trial court making a prior independent evaluation of the credibility-reliability or trustworthiness of not only the child witness, but also of each prior hearsay statement. Corroboration of such hearsay testimony is mandatory if we are to preserve our system of justice. The child in this case, a nine year old boy, made the accusation after the appellant refused to take the child on an overnight fishing trip. After the appellant told the alleged victim he could not go, the child went inside the house and started trouble with his little sister, for which his mother whipped him. He then told his mother the appellant had been molesting him. The mother took him to a pediatrician the same day. The doctor found absolutely no evidence that the child’s accusation was true. The child said the appellant had done it to him that day and for several months before. The child subsequently recanted his story. The doctrine of exclusion of hearsay existed long before the Constitution and Bill of Rights were adopted by the people of the United States. The hearsay exclusion was a basic tenet of the common law. Trial by depositions was found to be fundamentally lacking in trustworthiness and thus such Star-Chamber proceedings were swept aside by the adoption of the Sixth Amendment. Justice Marshall, in his dissenting opinion in Inadi, 106 S.Ct. at 1129, remarked: “The plight of Sir Walter Raleigh, condemned on the deposition of an alleged accomplice who had since recanted, may have loomed large in the eyes of those who drafted that constitutional guarantee.” Exceptions have eroded the Confrontation Clause and the rule against hearsay. However, the present erosion seems not to be founded so much upon the test of reliability in search of the truth as it is upon the convenience of the state. Exceptions to the rule against hearsay must be permitted only for a compelling reason, and then the exceptions should be narrowly defined and strictly construed. Especially in light of the procedure providing for videotaped testimony of the child, A.S.A. § 43-2036, which retains most of the safeguards attendant to a trial, I would require an affirmative showing of reliability and unavailability. The inherent untrustworthiness of hearsay, as clearly demonstrated in the present case, led to the development of the hearsay exclusion doctrine in the common law. The exceptions to the hearsay doctrine were few in number and were founded upon a showing of reliability and necessity. The hearsay testimony in this case should be required to pass this two-part test demanded by Ohio v. Roberts. We have no indicia, even on appeal, of the circumstances relating to reliability at the time these hearsay statements were allegedly made. No case I have read holds that a statute as broad as 803(25) is constitutional. See my concurring opinion in Charles Wesley Cogburn v. State, 292 Ark. 564, 732 S.W.2d 807 (1987). Therefore, I insist the Arkansas procedure is unconstitutional.