P. v. Hopson, S228193

Sixth Amendment (confrontation right): Fourteenth Amendment: Hearsay: Civil-law mode of criminal procedure: Harmless beyond a reasonable doubt:

Defendant R. L. H. was tried on charges that she, along with her boyfriend, J. Thomas, was responsible for the 2011 murder of her housemate, L. B. In her trial testimony, defendant pinned the blame on Thomas, who had since died. In rebuttal, the prosecution introduced a confession Thomas had given to detectives following his arrest, in which he pinned much of the blame on defendant. Defendant argues that the admission of Thomas‘s confession violated her right under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution to confront the witnesses against her. The Court of Appeal rejected the argument, concluding that the claim fails because Thomas‘s confession was presented not to establish the truth of his account, but instead to undermine defendant‘s competing account of their joint crime.

We granted review to consider whether the admission of Thomas‘s confession violated defendant‘s Sixth Amendment confrontation right. Our review is de novo. (People v. Seijas (2005) 36 Cal.4th 291, 304.)

We conclude, contrary to the Court of Appeal, that the jury was in fact asked to consider Thomas‘s confession for its truth and that the admission of the confession thus violated defendant‘s Sixth Amendment right to confront her accusers. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

The confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is binding on the states under the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees the right of a criminal defendant to be confronted with the witnesses against him. (U.S. Const., 6th Amend.; see Pointer v. Texas (1965) 380 U.S. 400, 406.)

The understanding of the clause‘s protections has shifted over time. Although the United States Supreme Court at one time interpreted the clause to bar admission of out-of-court statements that lacked adequate indicia of reliability (Ohio v. Roberts (1980) 448 U.S. 56, 66), the court reconsidered this approach in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (Crawford). Tracing the historical origins of the confrontation right, the court explained 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 p. 50.) Interpreting the clause with this focus in mind, the court held that the Sixth Amendment bars admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. (Id. at pp. 53–54; accord, Davis v. Washington (2006) 547 U.S. 813, 821.)

It is undisputed that Thomas‘s postarrest confession to police — which defendant had no opportunity to test through cross-examination — qualifies as testimonial within the meaning of Crawford.

Indeed, Crawford itself identified unconfronted accomplice statements to authorities as core testimonial statements that the Confrontation Clause plainly meant to exclude. (Crawford, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 63; see also, e.g., Michigan v. Bryant (2011) 562 U.S. 344, 358.) But in a portion of the opinion central to the case before us, the high court in Crawford also made clear that this rule of exclusion applies only to testimonial hearsay; the confrontation clause does not bar the use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted  that is, for nonhearsay purposes. (Crawford, at p. 60, fn. 9, citing Tennessee v. Street (1985) 471 U.S. 409, 414; see also People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665, 682 [describing the not-for-the-truth limitation on the confrontation right].) The principal question we confront here is whether Thomas‘s un-cross-examined confession was used for such a nonhearsay purpose, or whether it was instead used as evidence against the accused, in violation of defendant‘s Sixth Amendment rights. (Crawford, at p. 50.)

In People v. Sanchez, supra, 63 Cal.4th 665, we examined the development of the high court‘s Crawford jurisprudence and instructed courts addressing the admissibility of out-of-court statements to undertake a two-step analysis. The first step is a traditional hearsay inquiry: Is the statement one made out of court; is it offered to prove the truth of the facts it asserts; and does it fall under a hearsay exception? If a hearsay statement is being offered by the prosecution in a criminal case, and the Crawford limitations of unavailability, as well as cross-examination or forfeiture, are not satisfied, a second analytical step is required. Admission of such a statement violates the right to confrontation if the statement is testimonial hearsay, as the high court defines that term. (Id. at p. 680.) The primary question in this case centers on whether Thomas‘s confession was offered to prove the truth of the facts it asserted, and therefore qualified as testimonial hearsay for purposes of the confrontation clause.

(…) But the second and more fundamental problem with the argument is that the jury was never informed of the limited nonhearsay purpose for which Thomas‘s confession was ostensibly admitted, and, critically, the prosecution did not use Thomas‘s confession for any such limited purpose. The prosecution instead used Thomas‘s confession to establish the role that defendant had played in the murder — that is, for the truth of his out-of-court statements. If the prosecution had intended simply to impeach Thomas‘s credibility — that is, to demonstrate that Thomas was an unreliable witness — it would have sufficed to present his inconsistent statements.

Crawford makes clear that the prosecution may not ask the jury to credit an accomplice‘s out-of-court stationhouse confession shifting or spreading blame to the defendant unless the defendant has had the opportunity to test the accomplice‘s reliability in the crucible of cross-examination. (Crawford, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 61.) In this case, as the Court of Appeal observed, evidentiary rules were very loosely applied . . . and few restrictions were observed by either side, or by the trial court. The end result was that an accomplice‘s confession implicating the defendant was used as substantive evidence of her role in the crime, even though she had no opportunity to test his reliability through cross-examination. This violated defendant‘s right of confrontation.

The Attorney General argues that any violation of defendant‘s Sixth Amendment rights was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24; see, e.g., People v. Pearson (2013) 56 Cal.4th 393, 463.) The Attorney General argues the evidence of defendant‘s guilt was sufficiently overwhelming that there was no reasonable possibility that the jury verdict could have been affected by the admission of Thomas‘s confession. Defendant, however, points out that Thomas‘s confession was both powerfully incriminating and provided the only direct evidence of defendant‘s role in the murder, which explains why the prosecutor relied on the confession so heavily in his arguments to the jury.

Because the Court of Appeal concluded that defendant‘s constitutional right to confront Thomas had not been violated, it did not address these arguments. We consider it appropriate to remand this matter to the Court of Appeal to permit that court to determine the question in the first instance. (People v. Mendoza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 1114, 1135; see Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.528, subd. (c).)

Secondary sources: McCormick on Evidence (7th ed. 2013) The Hearsay Rule, § 249, p. 189, fn. 2; Witkin, Cal. Evidence (5th ed. 2012) Hearsay, § 38, pp. 831–832; Wigmore on Evidence (Chadbourn ed. 1970) Specific Error (Contradiction), § 1000, pp. 956–958.

(Cal.S.C., July 3, 2017, P. v. Hopson, J. Kruger (concur.: JJ. Chin, Corrigan, Liu, Cuéllar. Diss.: C.J. Cantil-Sakauye, J. Werdegar, S228193).

Droit de l'accusé dans la procédure pénale de confronter les témoins comparant contre lui :

En l'espèce, l'accusée a soutenu en cours de procédure que l'homicide était le fait de son ami, entre-temps décédé.

L'accusation déposa alors dans la procédure une déclaration de l'ami, incriminant l'accusée.

Celle-ci s'opposa au dépôt de dite déclaration, au motif qu'elle portait atteinte à son droit d'interroger à l'audience les témoins déposant contre elle, droit déduit du Sixième Amendement de la Constitution fédérale, lequel s'applique aux Etats en vertu du Quatorzième Amendement.

La cour d'appel a rejeté cet argument, considérant que la déclaration n'avait pas été admise pour permettre au Jury d'apprécier la véracité de son contenu, mais bien pour décrédibiliser la version contraire présentée par l'accusée.

Saisie à son tour, la Cour Suprême de Californie juge, contrairement à la cour d'appel, qu'il a été demandé au Jury de considérer la conformité à la vérité de la déclaration de l'ami de l'accusée, en violation du droit de celle-ci de pouvoir interroger un témoin déposant contre elle.

La jurisprudence de la Cour Suprême fédérale relative aux limites du Sixième Amendement a varié au fil du temps. La Cour considère aujourd'hui que le droit de confronter le témoin adverse a pour but d'éviter l'admission au procès d'éléments contre l'accusé recueillis hors procédure et de se distancer à cet égard des pratiques des juridictions de droit civil. Ainsi, le Sixième Amendement prohibe la production au dossier des dépositions d'un témoin qui ne comparaît pas à l'audience, à moins qu'il ne soit dans l'impossibilité de comparaître et que l'accusé ait eu une opportunité antérieure de le questionner. (Pour être exclues, les dépositions doivent encore être de nature "testimoniale", le sens de ce terme n'étant pas l'objet de la présente espèce).

Par ailleurs, une déposition hors procédure ne pourra être exclue que si elle a nature de "hearsay", soit qu'elle a été donnée pour établir la véracité de son contenu. Il s'agit dès lors en l'espèce de déterminer si la déclaration hors procédure de l'ami décédé a été proposée pour un motif hors la limite de "hearsay" ou s'il a été proposé comme moyen de preuve contre l'accusée, en violation du Sixième Amendement. A cet égard, il est bien possible que la déclaration ait été admise à d'autres fins que celle d'incriminer directement l'accusée. Le problème est que le Jury n'a jamais été informé du but restreint, hors la limite de "hearsay", pour lequel la déclaration avait été admise. En outre, l'accusation n'a pas utilisé la déclaration dans le cadre de ce but restreint, elle l'a utilisée au contraire comme preuve directe de culpabilité.

La jurisprudence Crawford a clairement considéré que l'accusation ne pouvait pas demander au Jury de donner crédit à une déclaration d'un complice, donnée hors audience, par laquelle l'accusé était désigné comme coupable, à moins que ce dernier n'ait eu l'opportunité d'interroger le déclarant à cet égard. Tel n'a pas été le cas en l'espèce.