Court Opinion

ID: 9452917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:56:40.883748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:25.088909
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
No question of fact is involved in this case, but an important Constitutional issue. The right of confrontation, although but recently imposed upon the states, is an old and valuable right. Kirby v. United States, 1899, 174 U.S. 47, 19 S.Ct. 574, 43 L.Ed. 890. I do not take it that the extension by Pointer v. State of Texas, 1965, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923, was only half-hearted; we must be guided fully by the Supreme Court decisions. The esteem in which the Court holds this right is illustrated by its recent case of Parker v. Gladden, 87 S.Ct. 468, 12/12/6. Cf. Brookhart v. Janis, 1966, 384 U.S. 1, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314.
In situations of necessity, the importance of the public interest may qualify the right of a defendant to be condemned by a witness the jury can see and appraise. This must mean, however, a real necessity, not a token one. Motes v. United States, 1900, 178 U.S. 458, 20 S.Ct. 993, 44 L.Ed. 1150, clearly holds that mere unavailability of a witness is not enough; if the prosecution wants to use a witness’s prior testimony it first has a duty to try to produce him. Were there no such duty, the Court could not have relied on the negligence involved in the government’s failure to have the witness in that case. The significance of Motes is pointed up by the fact that there, unlike the present case, the defendant had cross-examined the witness on the prior occasion. Nonetheless, the Court found a denial of confrontation.
Although my brethren use the word “diligent,” I do not see how a state can be said to be diligent when it made no effort whatever. While the federal authorities, in their discretion, could have refused to let the witness be taken 226 miles, it would seem an unusual case in which the application for such a writ could be properly denied. In any event, the possibility of a refusal is not the equivalent of asking and receiving a rebuff. While I am not happy about the court’s somewhat offhand dismissal of the reasons petitioner’s counsel may have had for not cross-examining his former client at the preliminary hearing, I am more than unhappy to see confrontation dispensed with because the state did not choose to seek it.