Legal Info - Self Help - for Informational Purposes

People v. Monterroso
Supreme Court of California
Dec 13, 2004
34 Cal.4th 743 (Cal. 2004)

Concluding that "the common law pedigree of the exception for dying declarations poses no conflict with the Sixth Amendment."

https://casetext.com/case/people-v-monterroso

In People v. Corella, supra, 122 Cal.App.4th 461, the Court of Appeal concluded that, after Crawford, "a `nontestimonial' hearsay statement continues to be governed by the Roberts standard, but the admission of a `testimonial' hearsay statement constitutes a violation of a defendant's right of confrontation unless the declarant is unavailable to testify at trial and the defense had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.

Full Opinion:
https://casetext.com/case/people-v-corella-1/

541 U.S. 36

CRAWFORD
v.
WASHINGTON.

No. 02-9410.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued November 10, 2003.

Decided March 8, 2004.

Petitioner was tried for assault and attempted murder. The State sought to introduce a recorded statement that petitioner's wife Sylvia had made during police interrogation, as evidence that the stabbing was not in self-defense. Sylvia did not testify at trial because of Washington's marital privilege. Petitioner argued that admitting the evidence would violate his Sixth Amendment right to be "confronted with the witnesses against him." Under Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56, that right does not bar admission of an unavailable witness's statement against a criminal defendant if the statement bears "adequate `indicia of reliability,'" a test met when the evidence either falls within a "firmly rooted hearsay exception" or bears "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness." Id., at 66. The trial court admitted the statement on the latter ground. The State Supreme Court upheld the conviction, deeming the statement reliable because it was nearly identical to, i. e., interlocked with, petitioner's own statement to the police, in that both were ambiguous as to whether the victim had drawn a weapon before petitioner assaulted him.

Full Opinion:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/541/36