Court Opinion

ID: 9853412
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:48:13.178473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:47.025964
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I write separately to point out that, although the majority opinion is grounded solely on the panel’s interpretation of Federal Rules of Evidence 804 there is also a constitutional dimension to the concept of unavailability. See Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 724-25, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968) (“[A] witness is not ‘unavailable’ for purposes of the ... exception to the confrontation requirement unless the pros-ecutorial authorities have made a good-faith effort to obtain his presence at trial.”); see also Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 74, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980).
The basic litmus of Sixth Amendment unavailability is established: “[A] witness is not ‘unavailable’ for purposes of the exception to the confrontation requirement unless the prosecutorial authorities have made a good faith effort to obtain his presence at trial.” Barber v. Page, 390 US. at 724-25, 88 S.Ct. 1318 (emphasis added) [other citations omitted]. * * * [I]f there is a possibility, albeit remote, that affirmative measures *963might produce the declarant, the obligation of good faith may demand their effectuation. “The lengths to which the prosecution must go to produce the witness ... is a question of reasonableness.” California v. Green, 399 U.S. at 189, n. 22, 90 S.Ct., at 1951 (concurring opinion, citing Barber v. Page, supra).
Roberts, 448 U.S. at 74, 100 S.Ct. 2531 (emphasis added). Accord, e.g., Christian v. Rhode, 41 F.3d 461, 467 (9th Cir.1994); United States v. Winn, 767 F.2d 527, 530 (9th Cir.1985) (per curiam).
However the Rules of Evidence are interpreted, the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that testimony of an absent witness be considered only when the witness is unavailable. See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) (“Where testimonial evidence is at issue ... the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination.”). Accordingly, if we were to interpret Federal Rule of Evidence 804 to give carte blanche to the government to send a witness who has already testified to a location beyond the court’s process, we would have to assess whether that witness was “unavailable” within the meaning of the bounds set by the Sixth Amendment. See Motes v. United States, 178 U.S. 458, 474, 20 S.Ct. 993, 44 L.Ed. 1150 (1900) (“[T]he question [of admissibility of a prior statement of an absent declarant] cannot be made to depend upon the rules of criminal evidence.... It must be determined with reference to the rights of the accused as secured by the Constitution of the United States. That instrument must control the action of the courts of the United States in all criminal prosecutions before them.”); cf. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (stating that the Confrontation Clause’s protection does not turn on “the vagaries of the rules of evidence” but on “what the common law required.”).
It is often the correct approach for a court to interpret a statute or rule, when permissible in light of its language, in a way that avoids making unnecessary constitutional decisions. See, e.g., Town of Castle Rock, Colo. v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 778, 125 S.Ct. 2796 (2005); Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 146-51, 96 S.Ct. 2857, 49 L.Ed.2d 844 (1976); Reetz v. Bozanich, 397 U.S. 82, 90 S.Ct. 788, 25 L.Ed.2d 68 (1970); Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 177, 79 S.Ct. 1025, 3 L.Ed.2d 1152 (1959); Railroad Comm’n v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971; cf. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 346-47, 56 S.Ct. 466, 80 L.Ed. 688 (Brandeis, J., concurring). In my view, the doctrine of constitutional avoidance reinforces the interpretation of Federal Rule of Evidence 804 that we make today.