Court Opinion

ID: 9546293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:59.227863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:14.448120
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
specially concurring.
I adhere to my position developed in Amin v. State, Wyo., 694 P.2d 119 (1985), that aggravated robbery necessarily includes simple assault where the information charges robbery by the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon or a simulated deadly weapon. The trial court properly refused to instruct the jury on assault in this case, however, since the evidence presented at trial did not support a finding of assault without a taking. See Balsley v. State, Wyo., 668 P.2d 1324 (1983). Therefore, I concur with the majority in affirming the trial court’s denial of appellant’s requested lesser-included-offense instructions.
With respect to appellant’s objection to the use of court documents to prove his prior convictions, I agree with the majority that the constitutional right to confront one’s accusers does not include the right to confront a declarant in a public record when that record is offered into evidence at a sentencing hearing. The United States Supreme Court has characterized the right of confrontation as a “trial right,” Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 725, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 1322, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968), which enables the accused to cross-examine the “witness*1031es against him” 1 and permits the jury to observe the witnesses’ demeanor and judge their credibility. Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 242-243, 15 S.Ct. 337, 339-340, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895). Neither the language nor the purpose of the confrontation clause contemplates a testing of the preparer or custodian of court records which are offered at the sentence-enhancement hearing to establish the defendant’s prior convictions.
I do not find determinative of this issue the fact that public records are readily admissible into evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule, regardless of the availability of the declarant. The confrontation clause and the hearsay doctrine encompass different values, so that evidence permissible under one may violate the other. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 155-156, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1933-1934, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970); Hopkinson v. State, Wyo., 632 P.2d 79, 132 (1981), cert. denied 455 U.S. 922, 102 S.Ct. 1280, 71 L.Ed.2d 463 (1982). To comply with the confrontation clause, the State must, at a minimum, make a good-faith effort to produce the declarant for trial or establish why such effort would be futile. Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980); Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U.S. 204, 92 S.Ct. 2308, 33 L.Ed.2d 293 (1972); California v. Green, supra; Barber v. Page, supra; Mattox v. United States, supra; Hopkinson v. State, supra. As noted above, no such showing was required in this case, since appellant’s confrontation rights were not implicated at his sentencing hearing. Therefore, I join the majority in affirming the sentence imposed by the district court.

. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Art. 1, § 10 of the Wyoming Constitution both confer upon the accused the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”