Court Opinion

ID: 9537837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:25:34.725401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:04.131538
License: Public Domain

FOET, J.,
specially concurring.
In addition to the matters set forth in the court’s opinion, I deem it necessary to state what is in my view an additional essential consideration.
In State v. Shirley and Hurt v. Cupp, both cited in the majority opinion, we pointed out that in determining whether error has been committed when inadmissible material comes to the attention of the court sitting as the trier of fact, a basic consideration is whether or not a defendant has been deprived of his constitutional right to confrontation.① In each of those cases the judgment of conviction was reversed primarily upon that ground.
*169In this case, as the court’s opinion points out, the hearsay material came to the attention of the judge in open court during the trial. Its presence, its general content and the fact the court was looking at it all were made known by the judge to defendant and his counsel during the trial. Here, too, the challenged report was contained in the official court file, which, as such, was itself available to the parties for examination throughout the trial. Defendant had the right and opportunity here to object to the court’s examination of it in any appropriate manner, to examine it himself and to offer any testimony in relation to it that he wished. He did none of these things. Clearly, then, his belatedly claimed constitutional rights arising out of the right of confrontation were not only in no wise abridged here, but, if he had any basis for objection, were waived by him. Accordingly, I concur in the opinion of the court.

 U.S. Const, amend. VI; Oregon Constitution, Art I, § 11.