Court Opinion

ID: 9797180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:14:46.162686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:59.149418
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance. Like the majority, I conclude the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing is not confined exclusively to witness-tampering cases, in which a defendant commits malfeasance in order to procure the unavailability of a witness, but can be applied to these facts as well, where defendant’s actions in procuring a witness’s unavailability were the same actions for which he stood trial.
That narrow conclusion is enough to dispose of this case. As the majority acknowledges, the evidence available independent of victim Brenda Avie’s statements demonstrated clearly and convincingly that defendant Dwayne Giles shot and killed her and was not acting in self-defense. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 854.) Because of this intentional criminal misconduct, Giles forfeited his constitutional confrontation clause objection to the admission of Avie’s statements at trial. As the majority further correctly notes, this conclusion does not affect any statutory Evidence Code objections. {Ibid.) That should be the end of the matter.
Nevertheless, the majority proceeds to address and resolve two subsidiary questions unnecessary to this case’s disposition. First, it decides whether the prosecution, in order to use the victim’s hearsay statements, must demonstrate the defendant’s wrongdoing by clear and convincing evidence or only a preponderance of the evidence, despite its implicit acknowledgement the issue is not implicated here because either standard was satisfied. Second, it decides whether and to what extent the victim’s challenged statements may be used in making this threshold showing of wrongdoing, despite the fact, again, the evidence available independent of Avie’s statements makes it unnecessary to speak to this point.
Although as a general matter I endorse the majority’s desire to offer guidance to the trial courts, here the procedural posture of the case and the substantive nature of the issues make reaching out to do so both unnecessary and unwise.
*856Procedurally, these issues were never addressed by either court below, not by the trial court, because Giles’s trial predated Crawford v. Washington (2004) 541 U.S. 36 [158 L.Ed.2d 177, 124 S.Ct. 1354], which revised the standards for determining when the confrontation clause prohibits admission of testimonial hearsay, and not by the Court of Appeal, because it recognized, correctly, that either standard was met here. The Court of Appeal, moreover, never discussed whether it arrived at this conclusion exclusively based on, partially based on, or entirely without reliance on Avie’s statements. Our grant of review limited issues and focused on whether forfeiture by wrongdoing could be applied when the wrongdoing was identical to the offense for which the defendant stood trial. Given that limitation, the parties in their briefing touched only in passing on the standard of proof question and discussed the second question not at all. Thus, even were there compelling reasons to reach out and address issues unnecessary to this case’s disposition, this record would provide a notably poor basis for doing so.
Were the issues at stake routine, the absence of any considered views from the parties or lower courts, in a case where the issues are immaterial to the case’s disposition, would mean less. Substantively, however, they are not routine. The questions of the appropriate standard of proof and the appropriate evidentiary basis for finding forfeiture of a constitutional right are questions of constitutional dimension. Proposition 8’s “Truth-in-Evidence” provisions require admission of evidence except to the extent existing statutory or constitutional rules or privileges require otherwise. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 28, subd. (d).) Thus, to decide the subsidiary questions the majority purports to resolve, we must examine the confrontation clause of the United States Constitution, and perhaps the due process clause as well, and determine what they require.
In lieu of serious constitutional analysis, however, the majority simply notes that most—but not all—lower federal courts to consider the question have settled on a preponderance of the evidence standard, and proceeds to join in that view. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 852-854.) That majority federal view might well be right, but it might also be wrong, especially given that the federal cases the majority relies upon uniformly antedate the United States Supreme Court’s recent reassertion of the breadth and importance of the confrontation clause in ensuring defendants their fair trials. (Crawford v. Washington, supra, 541 U.S. at pp. 68-69 [“Where testimonial statements are at issue, the only indicium of reliability sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation”];1 see also United States v. Thevis (5th Cir. 1982) 665 F.2d 616, 631 [even *857pre-Crawford, holding “because confrontation rights are so integral to the accuracy of the fact-finding process and the search for truth . .., we conclude that the trial court was correct in requiring clear and convincing evidence of a waiver of this right”]; People v. Geraci (1995) 85 N.Y.2d 359 [649 N.E.2d 817, 822, 625 N.Y.S.2d 469] [concluding clear and convincing evidence is required because forfeiture results in “loss of the valued Sixth Amendment confrontation right” and because of “the intimate association between the right to confrontation and the accuracy of the fact-finding process”].)2
Constitutional analysis should not be embarked on lightly and never when a case’s resolution does not demand it. As then Associate Justice George once explained in like circumstances: “[T]he majority’s approach is inconsistent with well-established principles of judicial restraint. In his celebrated concurring opinion in Ashwander v. Valley Authority (1936) 297 U.S. 288, 347 [80 L.Ed. 688, 56 S.Ct. 466], Justice Brandéis, in reviewing a number of settled precepts of judicial practice, observed that ‘[t]he Court will not pass upon a constitutional question although properly presented by the record, if there is also present some other ground upon which the case may be disposed of. . . . Thus, if a case can be decided on either of two grounds, one involving a constitutional question, the other a question of statutory construction or general law, the Court will decide only the latter. [Citations.]’ California courts have long subscribed to this principle. (See, e.g., Palermo v. Stockton Theatres, Inc. (1948) 32 Cal.2d 53, 66 [195 P.2d 1] [‘ “It is a well-established principle that this Court will not decide constitutional questions where other grounds are available and dispositive of the issues of the case.” ’]; People v. Barton (1963) 216 Cal.App.2d 542, 546 [31 Cal.Rptr. 7].)” (Rider v. County of San Diego (1991) 1 Cal.4th 1, 17 [2 Cal.Rptr.2d 490, 820 P.2d 1000] (conc, opn. of George, J.); see also Morning Star Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization (2006) 38 Cal.4th 324, 332, 342 [42 Cal.Rptr.3d 47, 132 P.3d 249]; People v. McKay (2002) 27 Cal.4th 601, 626-627 [117 Cal.Rptr.2d 236, 41 P.3d 59] (conc. opn. of Werdegar, J.); Santa Clara County Local Transportation Authority v. Guardino (1995) 11 Cal.4th 220, 230 [45 Cal.Rptr.2d 207, 902 P.2d 225]; People v. Williams (1976) 16 Cal.3d 663, 667 [128 Cal.Rptr. 888, 547 P.2d 1000] [“[W]e do not reach constitutional questions unless absolutely required to do so to dispose of the matter before us”].)
*858These principles of judicial restraint apply with even greater force here, where the subsidiary constitutional questions the majority addresses are not only unnecessary to the case’s disposition but not well presented on the record before us. Consequently, while I concur in the judgment, I do not join in those portions of the majority’s analysis that decide the standard of proof or the permissible evidentiary basis for showing forfeiture by wrongdoing.
Moreno, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied May 23, 2007.

 While Crawford accepted that forfeiture by wrongdoing could, when proven, extinguish confrontation clause rights, neither it nor the United States Supreme Court’s followup decision in Davis v. Washington have purported to resolve what showing will suffice to establish a *857forfeiture. (See Davis v. Washington (2006) 547 U.S. 813,_[165 L.Ed.2d 224, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 2280]; Crawford v. Washington, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 62.)

 The issue of what evidentiary basis may support a showing of forfeiture of the constitutional right to confront and cross-examine the speaker by wrongdoing—May the prosecution rely solely, or even in part, on the very unconfronted statements it seeks to admit? May the trial court, without the opportunity for confrontation, make reliability determinations concerning these statements?—is likewise a constitutional question of uncertain resolution.