Court Opinion

ID: 9790567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:55:01.658585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:30.244406
License: Public Domain

GRODIN, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I am more persuaded than Justice Panelli that there may be merit in the majority’s suggestion that, once the “historical facts” have been found by the trial court, the determination whether those facts establish “due diligence” is a question to be decided de novo by the appellate court. Although the United States Supreme Court has apparently never explicitly addressed this issue, in Barber v. Page (1968) 390 U.S. 719, 724-725 [20 L.Ed.2d 255, 260, 88 S.Ct. 1318], and Ohio v. Roberts (1980) 448 U.S. 56, 74-77 [65 L.Ed.2d 597, 612-615, 100 S.Ct. 2531]—two of its leading decisions in this area—the court undertook its own evaluation of whether the prosecution had adequately established its “good-faith efforts” to secure the presence of the missing witness, and did not simply defer to the lower courts’ judgment as to the sufficiency or reasonableness of the prosecution’s conduct. While at times it may be difficult to separate disputes over “historical facts” from the ultimate question of “due diligence” or “reasonableness,” because any judgment as to the “sufficiency” of the prosecution’s efforts is so dependent on constitutional values and will necessarily establish guidelines for prosecutorial behavior in future cases, I think that a strong argument can be made that *996this is the type of mixed question of law and fact that, at least in general, should properly be resolved de novo on appeal.
Nonetheless, on the record in this case, I agree with Justice Panelli’s conclusion that the prosecution adequately established that it did act reasonably and undertook good-faith efforts to secure the in-court testimony of Tolbert and that the absence of such testimony cannot properly be attributed to a lack of diligence on its part.
To begin with, it should be emphasized that the majority does not claim that the prosecution failed to make a good-faith effort to find Tolbert or to secure his presence at defendant’s trial once Tolbert failed to appear at his scheduled sentencing hearing on March 9, 1981. As Justice Panelli notes, in the several months between Tolbert’s disappearance and the onset of defendant’s trial, the prosecution made extensive efforts to locate Tolbert, distributing hundreds of photographs of him throughout the Bay Area and checking with numerous individuals who might have been able to provide leads to his whereabouts. The majority does not fault the prosecution’s efforts in this regard.
Instead, the majority bases its finding of a lack of due diligence solely on the prosecution’s decision to accede to Tolbert’s demand that he be granted own recognizance release for the weekend of March 7 and 8, 1981, in return for his testimony at the initial trial of the codefendants. The majority suggests in this regard that “the prosecution’s dealings with Tolbert had as their single purpose and effect to secure his testimony at the first trial against Claudell, Basil, and Johnson; they were not intended to prevent ... his absence from defendant’s trial.” (Ante, p. 991.) With all respect, however, I do not believe that the record supports that assertion. As the majority itself notes, the prosecutor explicitly testified in explaining his actions with respect to Tolbert’s release that “ T wanted to do whatever I could to insure that [Tolbert] would testify against [defendant], because it was his testimony and his testimony alone which enabled us to identify [defendant] as the shooter in this case, and that’s a man that I was concerned about prosecuting from the outset.’” (Ante, p. 989.) Although the prosecutor’s immediate concern at that time may have been Tolbert’s testimony in the initial trial, the prosecutor apparently believed that if Tolbert’s request for a weekend release were not granted, it was unlikely that Tolbert would be willing to testify in either the first or the second trial, even if his actual presence at the two trials was forcibly compelled. Thus, it is not accurate to suggest that the prosecutor sacrificed defendant’s right to a fair trial in order to *997obtain Tolbert’s testimony at the codefendants’ trial; in reality, the prosecutor was attempting to ensure that Tolbert would in fact testify in court in both the codefendants’ and defendant’s trials.1 Indeed, if the prosecutor had failed to accede to Tolbert’s demand, and, as a result, Tolbert had been present but had refused to testify at defendant’s trial, defendant would undoubtedly now be arguing that the prosecution failed to exercise due diligence by refusing to do what was necessary to secure Tolbert’s testimony.
The majority also appears to suggest that even if the release of Tolbert was reasonable, there still would be an absence of due diligence because of the prosecution’s failure “to obtain from Tolbert and independently verify the name and address of the friend with whom he allegedly intended to spend the weekend.” (Ante, p. 992.) Although the court concedes that it is unlikely that “merely obtaining the name and address of the friend would have prevented Tolbert’s disappearance” (ibid.), it adds that the prosecution “could then have arranged that [Tolbert] be kept under surveillance during that period of time” (ibid.), raising the possibility that the failure to undertake such surveillance itself amounts to a lack of due diligence. The majority, however, cites no authority—and I know of none—which indicates that in order to satisfy either statutory or constitutional “due diligence” requirements, prosecutorial authorities must keep a prospective material witness under constant surveillance pending an upcoming trial. Such a requirement, even if limited to witnesses who are obviously reluctant to appear at trial, would clearly place a tremendous burden on law enforcement resources and would also seriously impinge on the privacy interest of the subject of the surveillance. Although “due diligence” may require that the prosecution make special efforts to keep a relatively “close tab” on a witness like Tolbert, I do not think we can say that the prosecution defaulted in its “good-faith effort” simply because it did not keep him under constant surveillance from the moment he was released from custody. As already noted, as soon as the prosecution learned that Tolbert had not appeared for sentencing after his weekend release, it undertook extensive efforts to find him.
Accordingly, taking into account all of the circumstances in this case, I would conclude that the prosecution established that it exercised due dili*998gence with respect to Tolbert and that he was unavailable despite its good-faith efforts to secure his testimony at trial.

Because the record in this case does not support any suggestion that the prosecutor acted to obtain the testimony of Tolbert at the codefendants’ trial at the expense of foregoing Tolbert’s presence or in-court testimony at defendant’s trial, there is no occasion to decide here how the due diligence concept should be applied in the event of such a conflict. I note, however, that there are often numerous constraints on the actions taken by prosecuting authorities—budgetary constraints, duties with respect to other cases, respect for the rights of material witnesses, etc.—and it may be that the “due diligence” concept should be flexible enough to permit consideration of all the circumstances involved in prosecutorial conduct.