Giles v. California

The Supreme Court has taken the case of a murder defendant seeking to exclude the testimony of his victim as an opportunity to clarify the state of Confrontation Clause doctrine.

The case, Giles v. California, No. 07-6053, arose when Dwayne Giles was tried for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Brenda Avie. Giles's position was that he shot the woman in self-defense, having heard her vow to hurt him and a friend. Giles maintained that Avie had once shot a man, and had threatened people with knives.

To thwart Giles's defense, prosecutors introduced evidence of a police conversation with Avie one month before the shooting. Investigating a report of domestic violence, officers who interviewed Avie were told that Giles had assaulted her and threatened to kill her while brandishing a knife.

On appeal, Giles argued that the use of Avie's police interview during the trial violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him. The California Supreme Court held that Giles had given up his right to confront Avie because his wrongdoing was the cause of her absence.

Historically, under both the common law and statute, defendants have been subject to the rule of "forfeiture by wrongdoing." That rule provides that those whose own wrongful actions have prevented a witness from testifying are said to forfeit their confrontation rights so that hearsay testimony from the absent witness is admissible.

However, in 2004 the Supreme Court issued Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), announcing a new direction in Confrontation Clause doctrine. Crawford essentially wiped out the admissibility of out-of-court testimony from unavailable witnesses unless the previous testimony was subject to cross-examination by the defendant.

In Crawford, the Court stressed that its goal was to revive confrontation as the primary means of assuring the trustworthiness of a witness's statements. Therefore, exceptions to the hearsay rule that were designed to achieve a result other than reliability were apparently preserved.

The Court will have the opportunity to elaborate on Crawford's application to the forfeiture by wrongdoing exception to out-of-court testimony in the Giles case. The case presents a unique version of that exception because the wrongdoing that kept Avie from court -- the murder -- was not motivated by a desire to prevent her from testifying.

The Court will likely hear oral argument on the case this spring.

Sixth Amendment, confrontation clause, witnesses, forfeiture, evidence