Court Opinion

ID: 9782445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:33:10.792915+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:59.921177
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS
dissenting.
In the United States Supreme Court's recent and dramatic re-interpretation of the Confrontation Clause, see Crawford v. Washington, — U.S. —, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), the majority finds support for our own, quarter-century-old, blanket prohibition against using the preliminary hearing testimony of a witness whose death makes him unavailable to testify at trial. Because I understand the analysis of Crawford to dictate precisely the opposite result, I respectfully dissent.
In Crawford, the Supreme Court overturns a line of authority, stretching back at least as far as 1980, see Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), which had evaluated the constitutional admissibility of prior testimony according to its trustworthiness, whether or not the defendant was given an opportunity to cross-" examine. - By contrast, Crawford makes clear that "where testimonial evidence is at issue," the Sixth Amendment demands the satisfaction of two, and only two, conditions: "unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination." Id. at 1867-69, 124 S.Ct. 1354. The Confrontation Clause therefore can no longer be construed to permit the admission of prior testimony taken in the absence of an opportunity for cross-examination, regardless of other guarantees of trustworthiness; or, for that matter, to sometimes require the exclusion of prior testimony as to which the defendant was given an opportunity to cross-examine, based on further serutiny of its trustworthiness.
Perhaps because Crawford was concerned only with an ex parte statement, made during police interrogation, it made no attempt to further define the term "cross-examine" or specify cireumstances under which the "opportunity to cross-examine" might be considered constitutionally inadequate. It also nowhere suggests, however, that the Confrontation Clause envisions a more restrictive notion of "cross-examination" than the term itself implies or that the right to eross-exam-ine at a preliminary hearing must be considered inadequate. Quite the contrary, using the term "ex parte" at least a dozen times, the Supreme Court leaves no doubt that "the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examinations, as evidence against the accused." Id. at 1868, 124 S.Ct. 1854.
The Crawford Court overruled Roberts, not only for analyzing the restrictions of the Confrontation Clause too narrowly, which resulted in the admission of "statements that do consist of ex parte testimony upon a mere finding of reliability;" but also for analyzing them too broadly by applying the same reliability standard to hearsay not consisting of ex parte testimony, which resulted "in close constitutional scrutiny in cases that are far removed from the core concerns of the Clause." See id. at 1869, 124 S.Ct. 1854. If the language it used were not clear enough on its face, the Supreme Court's intent in referring to an "opportunity to cross-examine" is apparent from its juxtaposition with the term "ex parte testimony" throughout, as well as the Court's expressed concern to articulate a clear standard that avoids the ad hoe analyses of the past. The Crawford analysis also makes abundantly clear that the Ohio Supreme Court in State v. Roberts, 55 Ohio St.2d 191, 378 N.E.2d 492 (1978), erred in excluding prior preliminary hearing testimony as a violation of the Confrontation Clause, not for the reasons given by the Supreme Court at the time, but rather by discounting statements in California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970), "suggesting that the mere opportunity to cross-examine rendered the prior testimony admissible." See Ohio v. Roberts, 100 S.Ct. at 2541.
By articulating a blanket prohibition against the use of preliminary hearing statements at trial, the holding of this court in People v. Smith, 198 Colo. 120, 597 P.2d 204 (1979), set this jurisdiction apart from virtually every other jurisdiction in the country. *983See, e.g., Rodriguez v. State, 711 P.2d 410, 414 (Wyo.1985) (expressly rejecting blanket prohibition of Smith ); see also King v. State, 780 P.2d 943 (Wyo.1989)(same); see generally Francis M. Dougherty, J.D., Annotation, Admissibility or Use in Criminal Trial of Testimony Given at Preliminary Proceeding by Witness not Available at Trial, 38 A.L.R Ath 378, §§ 1-6 (2004) ("At the present time, virtually all jurisdictions appear to allow the introduction of testimony given at a preliminary proceeding, at which the accused was present and had an opportunity to cross-examine the witness, when the witness is unavailable at trial."); 4 Christopher B. Mueller & Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Federal Evidence, § 491(d), 782 (2nd ed. 1994 & Supp. 2008) (observing that by far the greater number of courts hold that receipt of preliminary hearing testimony against the accused does not violate his constitutional rights).
This has been particularly true of the federal courts, which have found preliminary hearing testimony constitutionally admissible at trial pursuant to Rule 804(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which is virtually identical with CRE 804(b)(1). See, eg., U.S. ex rel. Haywood v. Wolff, 658 F.2d 455, 463 (7th Cir.1981); Glenn v. Dallman, 635 F.2d 1183 (6th Cir.1980). Crawford has only strengthened rather than undermined those holdings. See United States v. Avants, 367 F.3d 433, 445 (5th Cir.2004) ("The qualities that made [the witness'] testimony admissible under 804(b)(1): unavailability and prior opportunity for cross-examination" - satisfy "Crawford's confrontation clause test.").
In Smith, this court distinguished Colorado on the basis of the limited nature of its preliminary hearing. Limitations restricting the inquiry to probable cause and excluding questions of witness credibility, however, do not make preliminary hearings in this jurisdiction significantly different from those permitted by many other states or the federal government. See, eg., Coleman v. Burnett, 477 F.2d 1187 (D.C.Cir.1973) (preliminary hearing not a mini-trial on guilt but an investigation into reasonableness of bases for charge; examination of witnesses not of same breadth as at trial); Virgin Islands v. Aquino, 378 F.2d 540, 549 (3d Cir.1967) ("Credibility is not the issue at a preliminary hearing as it is in a trial. All the arts of cross-examination which are exerted to impair the credibility of a witness are useless in a preliminary hearing. Nevertheless, we must accept for present purpose the rule which makes no distinction between testimony given at a prior trial and the testimony given at a preliminary hearing.").
Whether or not the defendant committed the crime of which he is charged is the precise inquiry at a preliminary hearing, and the Colorado Rules of Criminal Procedure, like their federal counterparts, expressly guarantee a defendant the right to be represented by counsel and to call and cross-examine witnesses. See Crim. P. & (7)(b)(2). A preliminary hearing in Colorado is therefore not an ex parte proceeding and, as a matter of law, guarantees the defendant an "opportunity to cross-examine." Although an assessment of the credibility of witnesses is not within the seope of a probable cause determination, a defendant is not barred from challenging the perceptions, memory, or even veracity of witnesses who testify at a preliminary hearing. Nor is it irrelevant or meaningless to confront a witness with the goal of inducing him to correct, modify, or even retract his earlier statement. Even if the exercise of a court's discretion to limit examination could, under some cireum-stances, render the opportunity for cross-examination constitutionally inadequate, the blanket prohibition of Smith is unjustified.
In Smith, a case in which the primary holding concerning the materiality of perjured statements was subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court, see United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995), this court relied upon the state constitution to find a per se confrontation clause violation. Smith, 198 Colo. at 126, 597 P.2d at 208. Nothing in the opinion indicates that the issue was presented as a challenge under the state constitution, separate and apart from the corresponding provision of the federal constitution, nor did this court attempt to articulate any distinction between the two. In support of its ultimate holding, the court relied only upon State v. Roberts, which construed the Sixth Amend*984ment of the federal constitution and was itself reversed shortly thereafter by the Supreme Court. Because Smith neither suggests nor contains any justification for a separate reading of the Colorado Constitution, and because any federal underpinnings, upon which it may once have rested, have now clearly been removed by Crawford, I would overrule it and reverse the court of appeals.
I therefore respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICE KOURLIS joins in the dissent.