State vs. Dist. Ct. (Baker (Jeffrey)) (Nev. Supreme Ct. – Mar. 1, 2018)
The issue is whether a defendant had an adequate opportunity to cross-examine a witness when, immediately after the State’s direct examination at the preliminary hearing, the defendant waived his right to continue the preliminary hearing.
Baker stood accused of one count of sexually motivated coercion and eight counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14. At the preliminary hearing, Baker’s cousin, C.J., testified in detail regarding two instances in which Baker attempted to engage her in sexual activity. The first instance occurred when C.J. was 11 years old; the second when she was 13. Baker was well into his 20s on both occasions.
During the preliminary hearing, when C.J. finished testifying, the justice court said, “All right. Cross.” Instead of beginning cross-examination, Baker’s attorney asked for the court’s indulgence as he conferred off the record with the prosecutor. He then announced: “Today pursuant to negotiations, Mr. Baker will unconditionally waive his preliminary hearing. In district court he’ll plead guilty to one count of attempt[ed] lewdness with a minor.” After canvassing Baker, the justice court accepted his unconditional waiver of the remainder of the preliminary hearing.
At the district court arraignment two weeks later, Baker presented his signed guilty plea agreement. The court questioned Baker as to whether he understood the consequences of pleading guilty; he indicated that he did. Then the court asked if Baker was pleading guilty because he in fact attempted to commit a lewd act upon C.J. Baker equivocated before answering in the negative: “It’s not true.” The court rejected Bakers guilty plea and ordered the State to prepare an amended information reinstating the original charges.
One week later, C.J. committed suicide. The State moved to admit at trial the transcript of C.J.’s testimony at the preliminary hearing. The district court denied the motion, finding that Baker did not have an adequate opportunity to cross-examine C.J. at the preliminary hearing. The State challenged that order.
Because the State cannot appeal a final judgment in a criminal case, see NRS 177.015(3), the State has no remedy in law to challenge the district court’s evidentiary ruling. See State v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court (Armstrong), 127 Nev. 927, 267 P.3d 777, 779 (2011). The Supreme Court of Nevada therefore exercised its discretion to consider the State’s petition.
On appeal, the State argued that the district court arbitrarily and capriciously exercised its discretion when it denied the State’s motion to admit C.J.’s testimony from the preliminary hearing.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right. . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him” In accordance with that right, prior testimony from a witness unavailable at trial is admissible only if the defendant had “a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 68 (2004).
The Supreme Court of Nevada explained that in Chavez v. State, 125 Nev. 328, 213 P.3d 476 (2009), it held that a preliminary hearing can afford a defendant an adequate opportunity to confront witnesses against him pursuant to Crawford. The adequacy of the opportunity to confront is decided on a case-by-case basis, turning upon the discovery available to the defendant at the time and the manner in which the magistrate judge allows the cross-examination to proceed. Applying that test to the facts in Chavez, in which a victim of sexual assaults died after testifying at a preliminary hearing but before trial, the Court noted that nearly all the discovery was complete at the time of the hearing, and the magistrate judge allowed Chavez unrestricted opportunity to confront the witness on all the pertinent issues. The Court therefore concluded that admitting the witness’s testimony at trial did not violate Chavez’s Confrontation Clause rights.
The Court noted that the facts of this case were similar to those in Chavez. When C.J. testified against Baker at the preliminary hearing, discovery was nearly complete. Baker had transcripts of C.J.’s statements to law enforcement, a copy of the Declaration of Arrest, the crime report, the victim’s mother’s handwritten voluntary statement, and the detective’s case report. In sum, the discovery was sufficient for Baker to have cross-examined C.j. See Estes v. State, 122 Nev. 1123, 1140, 146 P.3d 1114, 1126 (2006) (“As [the defendant] obtained the police report during discovery, he had the opportunity to cross-examine [the victim] on the report’s contents . . .”).
The Court further noted that the sole relevant difference between this case and Chavez is that Baker chose not to cross-examine the witness who testified against him at the preliminary hearing. He was not denied an opportunity to do so; there is nothing in the record to suggest that the court impeded or discouraged cross-examination. The Court saw no reason to differentiate between a defendant who cross-examines a witness at the preliminary hearing-like the defendant in Chavez – and a defendant, like Baker, who chooses not to. “[T]he Confrontation Clause guarantees an opportunity for effective cross-examination, not cross-examination that is effective in whatever way, and to whatever extent, the defense might wish.” Chavez, 125 Nev. at 338, 213 P.3d at 483; see also Hinojos-Mendoza v. People, 169 P.3d 662, 668 (Colo. 2007) (“[W]here a defendant chooses not to take advantage of the opportunity to cross-examine a witness, the defendant has not been denied his constitutional right to confrontation.”); Clark v. State, 808 N.E.2d 1183, 1189-90 (Ind. 2004) (“[A]lthough the accused must have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness during the face-to-face confrontation, the opportunity does not have to be seized or successful. . . .”); State v. Nelson, 725 P.2d 1353, 1357 (Utah 1986) (“It is the opportunity to cross-examine that is guaranteed by the state and federal constitutions, not whether that opportunity is exercised.”).
The Court recognized that it has previously indicated that three conditions must be met before testimony from a preliminary hearing may be used at a criminal trial: “first, that the defendant was represented by counsel at the preliminary hearing; second, that counsel cross-examined the witness; third, that the witness is shown to be actually unavailable at the time of trial.” Hernandez v. State, 124 Nev. 639, 645, 188 P.3d 1126, 1130 (2008) (quoting Drummond v. State, 86 Nev. 4, 7, 462 P.2d 1012, 1014 (1970)); see also Grant v. State, 117 Nev. 427, 432, 24 P.3d 761, 764 (2001); Funches v. State, 113 Nev. 916, 920, 944 P.2d 775, 777-78 (1997); Aesoph v. State, 102 Nev. 316, 320, 721 P.2d 379, 381-82 (1986). The Court noted that all of these cases derive from Drummond, in which we tried to reconcile dicta from two United States Supreme Court cases decided in the 1960s. The Court pointed out that neither Drummond nor the cases cited above addressed the issue of whether an opportunity to cross examine suffices when no actual cross-examination occurred. See Grant, 117 Nev. at 432 n.5, 24 P.3d at 764 n.5 (“[Whether mere opportunity is sufficient has not been addressed since in most cases, the witness was actually cross-examined.”). Therefore, because those cases did not turn on whether an opportunity to cross-examine is sufficient for confrontation purposes, The court determined that statements addressing that issue are noncontrolling dicta. See Armenta-Carpio v. State, 129 Nev. 531, 535, 306 P.3d 395, 398 (2013) (declining to apply the doctrine of stare decisis to statements from a prior opinion that “went beyond answering the limited question that was before the court”). The Court saw no reason to adhere to that dicta when the Supreme Court has since clarified that prior testimony from a witness unavailable at trial is admissible as long as the defendant had “a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68.
That Court explained that its holding was a straightforward application of Chavez: when deciding whether a preliminary hearing afforded a defendant “an adequate opportunity to confront witnesses against him,” key factors include the amount of discovery available to the defendant at the time of the hearing and the extent to which the “judge allowed the defendant a thorough opportunity to cross-examine the witness.” Chavez, 125 Nev. at 337, 339, 213 P.3d at 482, 484. Thus, the Court held that, when a defendant declines an opportunity to cross-examine a witness at a preliminary hearing, the defendant was not denied “a thorough opportunity to cross-examine.” Id. at 339, 213 P.3d at 484. The Court determined that because the justice court offered Baker an opportunity to cross-examine C.J., and Baker possessed all discovery relevant to her testimony, Baker had “an adequate opportunity to confront” C.J. at the preliminary hearing such that admitting her testimony at trial does not violate his Sixth Amendment rights. In denying the State’s motion to admit C.J.’s testimony on Sixth Amendment grounds, The Court found that the district court misapplied Chavez and, in so doing, manifestly abused its discretion.
The Court concluded that the Confrontation Clause guarantees defendants an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses who testify against them. It does not give defendants a sword to strike adverse testimony that the defendant chose not to contest. Baker received ample discovery at the time of the preliminary hearing, and he was not denied an opportunity to cross-examine C.J. Accordingly, the Court granted the petition issued a writ of mandamus instructing the district court to vacate its order denying the State’s motion to admit C.J.’s testimony.