Court Opinion

ID: 9766298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:40:20.957446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.114589
License: Public Domain

*120SPAETH, Judge
(concurring):
There are three possible views of the impact of the confrontation clause on the admissibility of hearsay evidence. .
One view is that the clause has no impact. In Wig-more’s words:
The Constitution does not prescribe what kinds of testimonial statements (dying declarations, or the like) shall be given infra-judicially, — this depends on the laws of Evidence for the time being, — but only what mode of procedure shall be followed — i. e. a cross-examining procedure — in the case of such testimony as is required by the ordinary Law of Evidence to be given infra-judicially.
5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1397, at 131 (3d ed.1940) (footnote omitted).
A second view is that the clause was intended, or should now be regarded, as a prohibition on the use of any hearsay.
So far neither of these two views has gained judicial assent, although Mr. Justice Harlan came to adopt the first, and maintained that “my. Brother MARSHALL is being driven [toward the second], although he does not quite yet embrace it.” Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 93, 95, 91 S.Ct. 210, 223, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970) (concurring opinion).
The third view is that some hearsay is prohibited by the clause, but some is not. Perhaps the most frequently cited expression of this view is Mr. Justice White’s for the majority of the Court in California v. Green, 399 U. S. 149, 155-56, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1933, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970):
While it may readily be conceded that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, it is quite a different thing to suggest that the overlap is complete and that the Con*121frontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of hearsay and their exceptions as they existed historically at common law. Our decisions have never established such a congruence; indeed, we have more than once found a violation of confrontation values even though the statements in issue were admitted under an arguably recognized hearsay exception. See Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). The converse is equally true: merely because evidence is admitted in violation of a long-established hearsay rule does not lead to the automatic conclusion that confrontation rights have been denied [footnote omitted].
And see Commonwealth v. Thomas, 443 Pa. 234, 279 A.2d 20 (1971).
Although this third view at present prevails, there has been no agreement on a unifying principle by which one may determine when the confrontation clause does overlap the rules against hearsay and when it does not. So far the Court has proceeded on a case by case basis, deliberately refraining from the formulation of any such principle. For example, in California v. Green, supra 399 U.S. at 162, 90 S.Ct. at 1937, the Court said: “We have no occasion in the present case to map out a theory of the Confrontation Clause that would determine the validity of all such hearsay ‘exceptions’ permitting the introduction of an absent declarant’s statements.” And in Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 86, 91 S.Ct. 210, 218, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970), the Court said: “We confine ourselves ... to deciding the case before us.” No doubt there is much in favor of this way of proceeding, but it does have its difficulties, which are illustrated by the present case.
If in examining a given case one emphasizes the importance to the defendant of cross-examination, one is likely to conclude that the confrontation clause has been *122violated. For example, in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965), the prosecution introduced at trial the transcript of a crucial witness’s testimony from a preliminary hearing. The witness himself, one Phillips, had left the jurisdiction and did not appear at trial. The Court held that “[b] ecause the transcript of Phillips’ statement . . . had not been taken at a time and under circumstances affording petitioner through counsel an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Phillips,” id. at 407, 85 S.Ct. at 1070, the introduction of the transcript was in violation of the confrontation clause. Similarly, in Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965), the Court reversed a conviction when the prosecution read into the record an alleged confession of the defendant’s supposed accomplice, one Loyd, who refused to testify on self-incrimination grounds. “In the circumstances of this case, petitioner’s inability to cross-examine Loyd as to the alleged confession plainly denied him the right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause. . ” Id. at 419, 85 S.Ct. at 1077. And in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Court found a violation of the confrontation clause in the admission of a co-defendant’s confession, implicating Bruton, where the co-defendant did not testify. The Court emphasized that the violation occurred because the co-defendant “does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination.” Id. at 136, 88 S.Ct. at 1628.
In a case such as the present case it is all-important to the defendant that his counsel be able to cross-examine the complaining witness, and that the jury be able to observe the witness’s reaction to the cross-examination. Thus, if one follows the lead of such cases as Pointer, Douglas, and Bruton, one will agree with the dissenting opinion of the President Judge that the confrontation clause has been violated.
*123If further appeal is allowed, it may be that the President Judge’s view will prevail, but I do not think so. The reason I do not is that the Court has made plain that its emphasis on the importance of cross-examination must be qualified by reference to other aspects of the particular case, especially, whether the declarant is unavailable. Thus in Pointer itself, the Court said:
This Court has recognized the admissibility against an accused of dying declarations, Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 151, 13 S.Ct. 50, 53, 36 L.Ed. 917 (1892), and of testimony of a deceased witness who had testified at a former trial, Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 240-244, 15 S.Ct. 337, 338-340, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1894). . . . Nothing we hold here is to be the contrary. The case before us would be a quite different one had Phillips’ statement been taken at a full-fledged hearing at which petitioner had been represented by counsel who had been given a complete and adequate opportunity to cross-examine.
Pointer v. Texas, supra, 380 U.S. at 407, 85 S.Ct. at 1069.
Here, the declarant is not unavailable because of death but because she is out of the jurisdiction. I do not think, however, that this is enough to distinguish the case from the second of the two Mattox decisions. I reach this conclusion because of Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968). There, at the time of trial the declarant was in a federal prison. The prosecution was permitted to introduce the transcript of his testimony, taken at a preliminary hearing at which the defendant’s counsel could have cross-examined him. The Court held that “a witness is not ‘unavailable’ for purposes of the foregoing exception to the confrontation requirement [i. e., the exception stated in the second Mattox decision] unless the prosecutorial authorities have made a good-faith effort to obtain his presence at trial.” Id. at 724-25, 88 S.Ct. at 1322. Since the prosecution had made no *124effort at all — as for example it might have done by seeking a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum — the Court found that the declarant was not unavailable, and that therefore the defendant’s right under the confrontation clause had been violated. Thus the Court implied that if the prosecution had “made a good faith effort to obtain [the declarant’s] presence at trial,” the confrontation clause would not have been violated. See Commonwealth v. Faison, 452 Pa. 137, 141-142, 305 A.2d 44, 46 (1973). See also Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 804(a) (5) (declarant is “unavailable” if “proponent of his statement has been unable to procure his attendance . by process or other reasonable means”).
I concede that some day the Court may repudiate the implication of its decision in Barber. It may say that even where the prosecution does make a good-faith effort to obtain the declarant’s presence, still the evidence will be excluded in a case like this one, where so much may turn on cross-examination, and where the declarant could have testified had she chosen to. In the meantime, however, the witness was unavailable within the Act of May 23, 1887, P.L. 158, § 3, 19 P.S. § 582, for she was “out of the jurisdiction so that [s]he [could] not be effectively served with a subpoena.”1 Under Barber, to admit the transcript of her former testimony did not, in my opinion, violate the confrontation clause.
For these reasons I agree with the majority that judgment of sentence be affirmed.

. President Judge WATKINS says that “the complaining witness was served with the subpoena but refused to return for trial.” Dissenting 243 Pa.Super. at 126, at 482. She did not “refuse[ ]”; she asked the California Court to quash the subpoena, and, on the ground that to testify would be detrimental to her health, the court did. Judge Hoffman says that “the Commonwealth has not demonstrated that the complainant was ‘unavailable’ within the meaning of 19 P.S. § 582 . . . .” Dissenting 243 Pa.Super. at 127, at 483. I do not know, nor has it been suggested what further demonstration the Commonwealth might have made.