Court Opinion

ID: 9706818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:52:16.96072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:30.043494
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. The majority opinion represents an unprecedented weakening of the foundational requirements of the hearsay exception for past recollection recorded, V.R.E. 803(5), and an abandonment of the restrictions on the use of such evidence as the sole basis to convict a criminal defendant. The effect is that hearsay evidence, the reliability of which cannot be challenged by normal means, acquires such weight that defendant is stripped of the ability to mount an effective defense. Although I am sympathetic to the majority’s goals in this domestic violence case, I cannot agree to the distortion of neutral and essential principles of evidence law and fair play that reaching those goals necessitates. Accordingly, I dissent.
At the outset, I believe that we should be more forthcoming about what is really motivating the decision. This case involves an allegation of spousal abuse in which, as in many such cases, the abused spouse is the only witness to the assault. And too often, after filing a complaint with the police, the abused spouse recants or seeks not to press charges against the abusive spouse. See C. Klein & L. Orloff, Providing Legal Protection for Battered Women: An Analysis of State Statutes and Case Law, 21 Hofstra L. Rev. 801, 1187-88 (1993). The reality is that both the trial judge and the majority believe that this is a case of recantation by convenient memory lapse. That is, they are skeptical of the victim’s assertion that she remembers neither the assault nor the statement. What the opinion really says is that spousal abusers should not be able to avoid criminal responsibility by such a ploy.
I share the skepticism about the victim’s memory failure, but am unwilling to join result-oriented decision-making that eliminates important safeguards on the truth-finding function of trials. In this instance, evidentiary doctrine created to prevent those who feign amnesia from subverting the criminal justice process is equally applicable when the memory lapse is real.1 The result is to open up *102the realm of “trial-by-statement” where it is impossible to test the accuracy of the statement or resolve evidentiary conflicts in any reliable way.
I am also troubled that there is an internal inconsistency in the majority’s approach to the problem that confronts us. The hearsay rule that allows for the admission of the critical statement is applicable if the declarant “now has insufficient recollection to enable him to testify fully and accurately.” V.R.E. 803(5). What the majority is really holding is that because this essential element of the hearsay exception is not met, we should broaden the exception to let in more hearsay than we would otherwise allow. I fear that we are standing normal evidence analysis on its head to reach the desired result.
I
On the hearsay point, what is in issue is contained in State v. Lander, 155 Vt. 645, 582 A.2d 128 (1990) (mem.), where we reversed a criminal conviction because critical evidence was erroneously admitted under V.R.E. 803(5):
When a witness has no present recollection of a prior event, a previously recorded recollection of the event is admissible under V.R.E. 803(5) despite the proscription against the use of hearsay, V.R.E. 802, provided that the proponent lays the necessary foundation. . . . Defendant raised a timely objection to the use of the witness’s statement based on the inadequacy of the foundation. A review of the record indicates that the witness did not adopt his prior statement as his own or aver that the statement accurately reflected his knowledge at the time of its making. . . . Therefore, the statement lacked a foundation sufficient to justify its admission into evidence.
Id. at 645, 582 A.2d at 128 (citations omitted; emphasis supplied). There is no dispute that the foundation required in Lander is missing here. The majority has two answers to this obvious obstacle.2
The first is to distinguish Lander on the basis that the statements involved were prepared by another person rather than by the witness. *103The majority cites four cases for the significance of this distinction. None state that this distinction is critical so that the evidence would have been admissible if the statement had been prepared by the witness. In United States v. Schoenborn, 4 F.3d 1424, 1428 (7th Cir. 1993), for example, the court quoted from its earlier opinion in United States v. Williams, 951 F.2d 853, 858 (7th Cir. 1992), that in a third-party-transcription case, the evidentiary foundation must include both testimony to the accuracy of the transcription and testimony by the person whose past recollection is in issue “to the accuracy of his oral report to the person who recorded the statement.” What Schoenborn holds is that third-party-transcription cases impose an additional foundational requirement beyond that imposed in Lander, it clearly does not hold that the Lander requirements are inapplicable in such cases.
The majority’s new distinction is curious because it does not even apply to the facts of this case. V.R.E. 803(5) plainly states that a “memorandum or record . . . shown to have been made or adopted by the witness” may be admissible as past recollection recorded. (Emphasis added.) Here, the tape recording was made by the officer, not the witness. The police were in possession of the tape until trial. Indeed, we have a copy because the original is lost. Moreover, the officer testified that part of the tape was erased during transcription. The tape recording has pauses and jumps, as the machine was stopped and started during the interview.3
The use of the majority’s new distinction to distinguish Lander is also curious, since there is no indication in that published entry order decision that it is a third-party-transcription ease. This the first time I have ever observed that we have guessed at the facts of an appellate precedent in order to distinguish it on grounds never mentioned in the precedent.
In any event, no commentator supports the distinction made by the majority. McCormick comes the closest to the majority by acknowledging that the foundational requirements in issue may be more easily satisfied where there is no third-party-transcription, but is clear that the witness must in some way acknowledge the accuracy of the prior statement. See 2 McCormick on Evidence § 283, at 259-60 *104(4th ed. 1992). Weinstein states that in any case the witness whose statement is admitted must testify that he now recalls that it was accurate or that he would not have made it if it were not correct. 4 Weinstein’s Evidence ¶ 803(5)[01], at 803-180 to -181 (1995).
Nothing in the language of the rule supports the distinction. The rule requires the proponent of admission to show that the statement reflects the witnesses’ “knowledge correctly.” V.R.E. 803(5) (emphasis supplied). If the drafters intended the new majority result, they would have used “statement” not “knowledge.”
In short, the majority has created a distinction without a difference in order to distinguish a precedent of this Court which is dead against it. There is no support for the proposition that the difference can eliminate the foundation requirement of Lander that the witness “aver that the statement accurately reflected his knowledge at the time of its making.” Lander, 155 Vt. at 645, 582 A.2d at 128.
The second answer is to ignore the holding of Lander as if the inconvenient words within it have somehow disappeared. The majority’s view is that Lander cannot mean what it says because the plain language of Rule 803(5) does not include the Lander requirement. Part of the reason for the brevity of Lander, I am sure, is that it restated the widely-accepted requirements of the rule. See 4 Weinstein’s Evidence § 803(5)[01], at 803-180 to -181. The rule was drafted to be a codification of the common law hearsay exception, which included the Lander requirements. See id. at 803-172 (rule is codification of law that was long-favored in the federal courts); 3 Wigmore on Evidence § 747(a) (1970) (hearsay exception for past recollection recorded requires that witness be able to assert that record correctly represented his knowledge and recollection at time of making).
We have said often that our overall aim in construing statutes is to implement the intent of the Legislature. See, e.g., Lemieux v. Tri-State Lotto Comm’n, 164 Vt. 110, 113, 666 A.2d 1170, 1173 (1995). The same principle applies to construing our rules, but it is our intent that we must follow. Few of our evidence rules have a “plain meaning” when applied to myriad of circumstances that arise in the courtroom. Unlike the Vermont Legislature, we have devices in our rule drafting to explain the intent of the draftspersons. Thus, we have frequently looked to reporter’s notes, and other indicia of intent to determine the proper interpretation of rules. See State v. Bean, 163 Vt. 457, 463, 658 A.2d 940, 944 (1995). Also in construing a statute or rule, we presume that the common law is not changed except by clear and unambiguous *105language. See Estate of Kelley v. Moguls, Inc., 160 Vt. 531, 533, 632 A.2d 360, 362 (1993).
The intent behind Rule 803(5) is clear: to codify the common law rule, which contains the Lander foundation requirements. The wording of the rule does not clearly and unambiguously modify the common law requirements. It still requires that the past record reflect the declarant’s knowledge “correctly,” and here, this requirement has not been met. The majority’s attempt to find nuances in the drafting of Rule 803(5), while ignoring the statements of intent, only insures that the outcome will not reflect our intent.4
For its new approach, the majority relies on one precedent, United States v. Porter, 986 F.2d 1014 (6th Cir. 1993), a decision followed by no other state or federal court. The majority relies primarily on Porter for the contention that the accuracy of the statement can be shown according to objective indicia of reliability in lieu of the witness’s own attestations. See id. at 1017. Although Porter contains some broad language, I cannot read it as supporting the majority’s conclusion, and the facts are distinguishable from the present case. In Porter, the witness admitted making the statement and signing it under penalty of perjury. She testified that she tried to tell the truth to the police officer, but acknowledged that she was high on drugs at the time and could not be certain of what she had told the police. Therefore, she explicitly affirmed that the document reflected her knowledge when the statement was made. Id. at 1017.
Porter is, in the words of McCormick, an example of the “extreme, [where] it is even sufficient if the individual testifies to recognizing his or her signature on the statement and believes the statement correct because the witness would not have signed it if he or she had not believed it true at the time.”5 2 McCormick on Evidence § 283, at 259. Here, the wife, unlike the witness in Porter, does not remember meeting the police officer and giving the statement to him. She *106consistently testified that because of her memory loss, she could not verify the accuracy and truthfulness of the statement. If Porter represents the “extreme” case, we have now gone well beyond the extreme and made that normal.
The majority’s analysis would render the witness’s presence on the witness stand superfluous. See People v. Simmons, 177 Cal. Rptr. 17, 21 (Ct. App. 1981). If third party testimony can establish objective facts indicating the reliability of the statement, then the witness’s own attestations to the statement’s accuracy become unnecessary. Extending the majority’s logic, third party testimony could make admissible a statement that a witness claims is false, inaccurate, or was never made. The majority’s holding transforms Rule 803(5) into an exception for prior inconsistent statements not made under oath, see V.R.E. 801(d)(1)(A), and into a “catch-all exception” for hearsay that does not fit within a statutory exception. Unlike the federal courts, we specifically decided that we would not adopt a “catch-all” hearsay exception. See Reporter’s Notes, V.R.E. 803 (noting that Federal Rule of Evidence 803(24), providing for the catchall hearsay exception, was not adopted in Vermont). If we are to amend V.R.E. 803(5), we should do so by rule amendment and not by decision.
I can find no decision from any court that would allow admission in this case, and the evidence clearly does not meet the foundation requirement set forth in State v. Lander. Even if I thought Porter would go this far, the majority gives no explanation for overruling Lander. I would hold that the evidence did not meet the requirements of V.R.E. 803(5) and is, therefore, inadmissible hearsay. Since the evidence was central to the State’s case, indeed was the entirety of the case, I would reverse the conviction on that basis.
II
The concurring opinion has a different theory of admissibility. My main problem is that it is not supported by the facts found by the trial judge.
Through transcript pages of examination and cross-examination, the prosecutor and defense counsel attempted to induce defendant’s wife to answer hypothetical statements that might support or oppose admissibility of the tape recording. The result is that she did both. At one point, as the concurring opinion cites, she answered “I don’t believe I would have” to a question whether she would have made the statements on the tape if they were not true. At another point, she answered “anger” to a question asking whether there is a reason why she might tell someone something she did not believe was true.
*107Under V.R.E. 104(a), preliminary fact questions pertaining to admissibility are for the trial court. See Reporter’s Notes to V.R.E. 104(a). In this case, the farthest the court went was to find “if she talked to a police officer, and that is now established, she would have endeavored to be truthful.” The trial court adopted the theory of admissibility now accepted by the majority; it did not adopt the theory of the concurrence. --
The rule requires that the recording be shown “to reflect. . . [the •witness’s] knowledge correctly.” V.R.E. 803(5). I cannot accept that the recording has been shown to have reflected accurately the victim’s knowledge when she does not remember making the recording and can state only “she would have endeavored to be truthful.” Indeed, if this witness meets the foundation requirement, it is difficult to conceive of a witness who would not.
I can find no case that goes this far. In United States v. Patterson, 678 F.2d 774, 779 (9th Cir. 1982), the case relied upon by the concurrence, the witness recalled giving testimony to the grand jury and said “he did not think he had lied to the grand jury” and added that “he recalled the events in question better when he testified before the grand jury.” This foundation testimony, which is specific to the prior statement, is far stronger than that here.
As I indicated above, the foundation here is much weaker than what McCormick describes as “the extreme.” As McCormick indicates, the more common requirement is that the witness testify to a “habit or practice to record such matters accurately” even though he or she cannot speak to the accuracy of the particular recording at issue. See 2 McCormick, supra, § 283, at 259. Here, there is no showing of habit or practice.
I do not agree that we can affirm the trial court by relying on foundational facts not found below. If we accept the fact-finding of the trial court, as we must, the foundation requirements are not met.
Ill
Even if the taped hearsay statement is admitted, I would still reverse the conviction because the hearsay was the sole basis for appellant’s conviction, and cross-examination of the witness was futile. See State v. Robar, 157 Vt. 387, 391-96, 601 A.2d 1376, 1378-81 (1991). In Robar, we held that the State cannot meet its burden of proof if the sole evidence upon which the conviction is based is past recollection recorded, unless the prior statement meets specific standards of reliability. Id. at 395, 601 A.2d at 1380. A statement may *108suffice to prove the elements of a crime if the statement were made under circumstances supporting its reliability, and if the defendant has the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Id. Mere perfunctory cross-examination, however, is not sufficient to ensure that a defendant receives a fair trial. Id. at 396, 601 A.2d at 1380-81.
We must remember that the Robar holding was based on cases that dealt with prior inconsistent statements where the opportunity for cross-examination is greater. See 2 McCormick on Evidence § 251, at 120 (evidence of prior inconsistent statement has the safeguards of examined testimony because “witness who has told one story aforetime and another [on the stand] has opened the gates to all the vistas of truth which . . . cross-examination . . . was invented to explore”). The leading precedent was State v. Mancine, 590 A.2d 1107, 1117 (N.J. 1991), which held that corroboration for each element of the crime was unnecessary as long as there is general corroboration and the reliability of the statement is supported by the circumstances under which it is given. The decision stressed:
[T]he defendant must have the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant, because cross-examination . . . may be the only method of bringing forth facts necessary for a fair assessment of the circumstances under which the statement was given and in the trial setting is the sole means by which the factfinder can assess the credibility of the prior statement and the recanting one. . . . The crucible of cross-examination reveals “most, if not all, relevant circumstances surrounding the prior inconsistent statement,” regardless of the witness’ status.
Id. at 1117-18 (quoting State v. Gross, 577 A.2d 806, 812 (N.J. 1990)). Obviously, the function of cross-examination would not have been served in Mancine if the witness took the stand and testified that she did not remember the prior inconsistent statement or any of the circumstances under which it was given. Under those circumstances, the “crucible of cross-examination” would reveal absolutely nothing. Similarly, a full memory loss will make absolutely useless cross-examination on a record of past recollection.
In principle, the majority opinion appears to agree with the foregoing statement of our law and the fact that the hearsay statement was the sole basis for the conviction. In practice, it clearly doesn’t agree with the cross-examination requirement. To demonstrate this point, we need only look to how the requirement was applied in State v. Robar, our main precedent in this area.
*109In Robar, the witness had given a full statement, under oath at an inquest, and the statement described defendant’s involvement in the charged burglary. She could not remember the events at trial, nor her testimony at the inquest, but she did recall testifying at the inquest and stated that her testimony at the inquest was the truth. Cross-examination elicited that she was extremely drunk on the night of the burglary. We held that the cross-examination was “perfunctory” and deficient. 157 Vt. at 396, 601 A.2d at 1380-81.
Defendant here had less opportunity to cross-examine than the defendant in Robar. As in Robar, defendant showed that the witness might have been in an impaired state, here because of prescription drugs, but that is all that cross-examination showed. The fact that the witness had no recollection of the events or the statement was necessarily established in direct examination. The cross-examination of the police officer, even if relevant to whether defendant had a fair opportunity to cross-examine the alleged victim, could not go to the accuracy of the statement.
The majority deals with this deficiency by stating that the limited opportunity to cross-examine is present in every impaired memory case, and cannot be the basis for exclusion. I agree that the lack of memory of the events covered in the statement cannot alone prevent effective cross-examination. But here the witness professed to remember neither making the statement, nor the events covered in it. When the witness recalls making the statement, meaningful cross-examination is available about the circumstances under which the statement was made.6 See D. Greenwald, The Forgetful Witness, 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. 167, 179 (1993) (witness who remembers making statement can still testify whether he was lying or uncertain when he made it, but “[l]ines of inquiry like this . . . are of course blocked when not only the content but the making of the statement are forgotten.”). Thus, the cross-examination goes to the reliability of the statement, the heart of the question before the jury as discussed in Mancine. Without memory of giving the past statement, the witness is as close to a mannequin as we are ever likely to have.
*110The examination and cross-examination here shows the uselessness of questioning a witness with no memory of any relevant event. Instead of eliciting evidence, the questions are actually arguments to demonstrate that absolutely anything could be true as far as the witness was concerned. See Simmons, 177 Cal. Rptr. at 21 (witness unable to recall making statement or circumstances surrounding its preparation “simply has no knowledge at all”).
This exact distinction troubled the Court in Robar. We found the cross-examination deficient not because the witness had no memory of the events but because she had “no memory of the inquest and the events surrounding it.” Robar, 157 Vt. at 396, 601 A.2d at 1380. There is no way we can find that the opportunity here meets the cross-examination requirement of Robar. None of this deficiency is answered by corroboration of the statement on which the majority relies. Robar is clear that indicia of reliability, supplied by corroboration, and an opportunity for cross-examination, are separate requirements. Moreover, the corroboration is as consistent with defendant’s version of events as with the version contained in the statement. Corroboration adds nothing to the issue before the Court.
IV
One other issue is symbolic of what is going on in this case. Although- V.R.E. 803(5) admits past recollection recorded as an exception to the hearsay rule, the use of this evidence is carefully limited. Thus, the record “may be read into evidence but may not itself be received as an exhibit unless offered by an adverse party.” The limitation is to “avoid the danger that undue weight might be given to the [record] itself.” Reporter’s Notes to V.R.E. 803(5). The limitation was ignored in this case. The tape recording was played for the jury, rather than its content being read into evidence. See State v. Discher, 597 A.2d 1336, 1339 (Me. 1991) (once tape recording admitted as past recollection recorded, court permitted only transcript of tape recording to be read aloud to jury). It was replayed for the jury during their deliberations, at their request. The point was to give this recording the maximum weight possible because the taped hearsay statement was the primary evidence against defendant. The jury could have convicted defendant because the witness against him “sounded” credible.
The majority’s answer to this point demonstrates what went wrong here. They find it “ludicrous to suggest that in this case the jury should hear another person read a transcript of the tape, rather than *111hear the victim actually making the statement.” It is, of course, equally “ludicrous” to have someone read a written statement, rather than giving it to the jury for its perusal. No doubt, the jury will be in a better position to judge reliability if it hears or sees the statement.
Following Federal Rule 803(5), we adopted this “ludicrous” restriction for a reason. Past recollection recorded is evidence of debatable quality, and we did not want excessive reliance placed on it. Unfortunately, this decision is going in the opposite direction. The recorded statement is virtually all of the prosecution’s case, and the majority wants the full force of it to get before the jury. As our disagreements on the first two issues demonstrate, the majority has no concerns about the quality of this evidence, and a restriction built on such concerns looks ludicrous.
If this issue had been preserved, I would have voted to reverse also because we cannot say that the jury’s verdict was not substantially swayed by the improper playing of the tape. See United States v. Ray, 768 F.2d 991, 995 (8th Cir. 1985) (conviction for failure to appear reversed where transcript constituting past recollection was submitted to jury and constituted only evidence of defendant’s notice to appear). I raise it now to emphasize that evidence which, at best, is marginally reliable under evidence principles, and impossible to test through cross-examination, became the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case and was put in front of the jury in the most damaging way possible. It adds to my firm conclusion that this trial did not meet minimum standards of fairness that allows us to affirm its result.
I dissent.

By comparison, Rule 801(d)(1)(A), admitting prior inconsistent statements as “not hearsay,” can be used when the court finds a witness is feigning a memory loss. See 2 McCormick on Evidence § 251, at 121 (4th ed. 1992). That rule has an additional *102safeguard that the prior statement must be “given under oath subject to the penalty of perjury.” VR.E. 801(d)(1)(A).

A footnote suggests a third, that the Lander requirements were descriptions of history not law. In the paragraph quoted above, the next to the last statement can and should be taken as a description of what is in the record. The last sentence, commenced with “Therefore,” clearly states that the consequence of this history is that the *103“statement lacked a foundation sufficient to justify its admission.” It can be interpreted only as a statement of law, inconsistent with the majority’s position here.

 I am not suggesting that the tape recording was doctored. I am suggesting that the same issues of accuracy of transcription exist for a tape recording as for written statement which is reduced to writing by a third party.

 One of the nuances is that the rule is drafted in the passive voice and should have been stated in the active voice if the draftspersons had intended that the witness testify to the accuracy of the content of the recording. Virtually all of the hearsay exceptions are stated in the passive voice, showing that the real motivation behind the drafting of any exception is parallelism with other exceptions.
I also note that the majority’s textual approach explains only part of its rationale. It does not explain, for example, the majority’s distinction between statements prepared by the witness and those prepared by third persons. There is no support for this distinction in the text of the rule.

 The prosecution might have brought this case within the rule by playing the tape for the wife, and eliciting similar responses about it. The prosecution did not do so.

The majority is mistaken when they argue that our interpretation of the Robar requirements would mean that past recollection recorded could never be sufficient to uphold a conviction. The case before us presents the atypical past recollection recorded situation. Usually, the witness may not remember all or some of underlying events, but typically she remembers the circumstances under which she made the statement. See, e.g., United States v. Porter, 986 F.2d at 1017 (witness did not remember underlying events, but recalled circumstances under which she made and signed the statement given to police).