Court Opinion

ID: 9733556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:10:30.618924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:42.339648
License: Public Domain

TOMUANOVICH, Justice
(dissenting).
I do not agree that the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment permits the state to substitute hearsay for the in-court testimony of an available witness in the particular circumstances presented by this case.
In Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980), the United States Supreme Court articulated a general approach for resolving the conflict between the confrontation clause, guaranteeing an accused person the right to be confronted with witnesses against her or him, and the numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule, permitting out-of-court statements to be offered at trial in place of live testimony. The Court explained that, in order to conform with confrontation clause requirements, “[i]n the usual case (including cases where prior cross-examination has occurred), the prosecution must either produce, or demonstrate the unavailability of, the declarant whose statement it wishes to use against the defendant.” Id. at 65, 100 S.Ct. at 2538 (citations omitted).
Once the state has met this generally applicable burden, it must then demonstrate the hearsay it wishes to introduce is adequately reliable. Id. at 65-66, 100 S.Ct. at 2538-39. The state may satisfy this second requirement by demonstrating that the hearsay bears particularized guarantees of trustworthiness or that the hearsay falls within the scope of a “firmly rooted hearsay exception.” Id. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539.1
I agree with the majority that “Roberts cannot fairly be read to stand for the radical proposition that no out-of-court statement can be introduced by the government without a showing that the declarant is unavailable.” United States v. Inadi, 475 U.S. 387, 394, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 1125, 89 L.Ed.2d 390 (1986) (emphasis added). Indeed, Roberts itself expressly states such a disclaimer. See 448 U.S. at 65 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. at 2538 n. 7. (“A demonstration of unavailability, however, is not always required.” Id.) Roberts clearly did not establish a rule requiring unavailability be demonstrated anytime the state wishes to introduce hearsay as a substitute for live testimony. Rather, it acknowledged that in most instances — “in the usual case” — the baseline requirements established by the confrontation clause will not permit intro*129duction of hearsay absent the demonstrated unavailability of the declarant.
However, I firmly disagree with the majority’s suggestion that United States v. Inadi, 475 U.S. 387, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 89 L.Ed.2d 390 (1986), worked any substantial change in the Roberts rule. In Inadi, 748 F.2d 812 (3d Cir.1984), rev’d, 475 U.S. 387, 106 S.Ct. 1121, 89 L.Ed.2d 390 (1986), the Third Circuit concluded that there was no reason to deviate from the unavailability requirement where the government sought to introduce hearsay statements of a non-testifying coconspirator. See id. at 818. Given the tremendous advantage such statements provided the government, the court reasoned, requiring the government to demonstrate that live testimony was not an option, owing to the declarant’s unavailability, did not seem overly burdensome. See id. at 818-19.
The Supreme Court disagreed. It first explained that Roberts should not be read without attention to its own factual setting — that is, where “the prosecution seeks to admit testimony from a prior judicial proceeding in place of live testimony at trial.” Inadi, 475 U.S. at 393, 106 S.Ct. at 1125. Because Roberts articulates a general, but not a necessary rule, it obviously cannot be extended to instances clearly distinguishable from the proffered introduction of prior hearing testimony to replace testimony in court.
The Court then went on to explain why the Third Circuit was incorrect in concluding that out-of-court coconspirator statements were not sufficiently dissimilar from testimony given in a previous judicial proceeding to justify relaxing the unavailability requirement:
There are good reasons why the unavailability rule, developed in cases involving former testimony, is not applicable to co-conspirators’ out-of-court statements. Unlike some other exceptions to the hearsay rules, or the exemption from the hearsay definition [for coconspirator statements], former testimony often is only a weaker substitute for live testimony. It seldom has independent evidentia-ry significance of its own, but is intended to replace live testimony. If the declar-ant is available and the same information can be presented to the trier of fact in the form of live testimony, with full cross-examination and the opportunity to view the demeanor of the declarant, there is little justification for relying on the weaker version. When two versions of the same evidence are available, longstanding principles of the law of hearsay, applicable as well to Confrontation Clause analysis, favor the better evidence. But if the declarant is unavailable, no “better” version of the evidence exists, and the former testimony may be admitted as a substitute for live testimony on the same point.
Id. 475 U.S. at 394-95, 106 S.Ct. at 1125-26 (citation omitted).
While clearly justifying application of the unavailability rule where the government seeks to introduce hearsay in the form of prior testimony, the Court concluded this rationale does not justify extending that rule to coconspirator statements. See id. at 395, 106 S.Ct. at 1126. Such statements, the Court reasoned, are independently valuable as evidence of the context in which the conspiracy existed and typically can not be replicated by in-court testimony. In part, this is because the coconspirator-declarant will have changed from the defendant’s partner in' a criminal enterprise to a suspect or co-defendant, with interests entirely adverse to those she or he had as part of the conspiracy. It therefore “is extremely unlikely that in-court testimony will recapture the evidentiary significance of statements made when the conspiracy was operating in full force.” Id.
The Court further noted the substantial practical burdens applying the unavailability rule to coconspirator statements would place on prosecutors, often requiring the government to transport incarcerated individuals to and from court, or to maintain constant information as to the whereabouts of unincarcerated suspects. See id. at 399, 106 S.Ct. at 1128. Particularly where the defendant’s interests clearly would not be furthered by the opportunity to examine *130the declarant at trial, the imposition of such burdens can not be justified. See id.
Thus, the Court concluded, the same reasons that support requiring a demonstration of the declarant’s unavailability prior to introducing hearsay statements in the form of previous testimony do not justify extending that requirement to out-of-court statements made by a non-testifying cocon-spirator, in large part owing to the independent evidentiary value such statements bear, the marginal protection extending the requirement would provide a defendant who has little or no interest in examining the declarant at trial, and the substantial burdens the requirement would place on the government.
Taken together, Roberts and Inadi establish a general presumption in favor of live, in-court testimony, absent a showing of unavailability coupled with demonstrated reliability of the hearsay offered in substitution, and a set of reasons for departing from that presumption with respect to unavailability. I do not agree with the majority that any subsequent Supreme Court decision, and particularly Idaho v. Wright, — U.S. —, 110 S.Ct. 3139, 111 L.Ed.2d 638 (1990), alters this arrangement.
In Wright, the Court unambiguously stated that it was “[ajpplying the Roberts approach * * Id. at —, 110 S.Ct. at 3147 (emphasis added). Taking as given that the child-declarant was unavailable for Roberts purposes because she was determined to be incapable of communicating with the jury, the Court moved on to the second prong of the Roberts test — whether the hearsay proffered by the state was sufficiently reliable to satisfy confrontation clause requirements. See id. I find it curious that the majority does not directly address this point in reviewing its earlier decision, on express instruction from the Court, “in light of Idaho v. Wright.” It seems to me the obvious implication of the post-Wright remand of Larson I is not that this court’s conclusion as to the reliability of the proffered hearsay was flawed, but rather that its decision to circumvent the unavailability requirement was in error.
In my opinion, the state has not succeeded in demonstrating that the rationale underlying the Roberts rule fails to support application of that rule in this instance. Indeed, the factual setting here seems to track very closely the circumstances Inadi itself suggests justify excluding hearsay absent the declarant’s demonstrated unavailability. The state is simply attempting to replace live, in-court testimony with something the defendant can not challenge in a situation where the replacement clearly is not the best evidence available.
Unlike the circumstances addressed in Inadi, the child-declarant here did not make out-of-court statements that are virtually irreplicable in court. Her circumstances and interests have not substantially changed so as to cast doubt on her willingness to testify truthfully. Finally, there is no particular burden placed upon the state in requiring that it call her as a witness, evidenced by the majority’s “prospective evidentiary rule” permitting future defendants to demand such a declar-ant be produced.
Thus, the state has not met its burden of demonstrating both that the reasons underlying Roberts are inapplicable to the out-of-court statements at issue here and that the grounds for diverting from Roberts’ general rule outweigh any benefit applying that rule might provide the defendant. For this reason, the majority’s “quick fix” eviden-tiary rule — a prospective requirement that the state call the available declarant if requested to do so by the defendant — is no solution. Roberts defines introduction of the hearsay at issue as a constitutional violation. Declaring a new rule of evidence that does not even apply to this defendant does nothing to remedy that violation.2
*131I would hold that in this particular instance, absent a demonstration that the child-declarant is unavailable to testify, the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment prohibits introducing that child-de-clarant’s out-of-court statements to prove the truth of the facts they assert. This case should be remanded for a new trial.

. ”[C]ertain hearsay exceptions rest upon such solid foundations that admission of virtually any evidence within them comports with the ‘substance of the constitutional protection.’” Roberts, 448 U.S. at 66, 100 S.Ct. at 2539 (quoting Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 244, 15 S.Ct. 337, 340, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895)) (footnote omitted).

. Because introduction of the hearsay at issue does not clear the baseline standard established by the confrontation clause, the majority's reliance on Minn.R.Evid. 803(24), the “residual exception" to the hearsay prohibition, is misplaced. As the Supreme Court stated in Idaho v. Wright,
Although we have recognized that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, we *131have also been careful not to equate the Confrontation Clause’s prohibition with the general rule prohibiting the admission of hearsay statements. The Confrontation Clause, in other words, bars the admission of some evidence that would otherwise be admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule.
— U.S. at —, 110 S.Ct. at 3146 (citations omitted).
Beyond the fact that satisfying an evidentiary rule does not automatically demonstrate constitutionality, I also disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the child-declarant’s statements are admissible pursuant to the residual exception. That exception requires a judicial determination that, among other things, "the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts * * *.” Minn.R.Evid. 803(24)(B). Given the child-declarant’s competence to testify, I do not believe the hearsay at issue is the most probative evidence the state may reasonably be asked to procure.