California v. Green

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Section 1235 of the California Evidence Code, effective as of January 1, 1967, provides that “[e]vidence of a statement made by a witness is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement is inconsistent with his testimony at the hearing and is offered in compliance with Section 770.” 1In People v. Johnson, 68 Cal. 2d 646, 441 P. 2d 111 (1968), cert. denied, 393 U. S. 1051 (1969), the California Supreme Court held that prior statements of a witness that were not subject to cross-examination when originally made, could not be introduced under this section to prove the charges against a defendant without violating the defendant’s right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the case now before us the California Supreme Court applied the same ban to a prior statement of a witness made at a preliminary hearing, under oath and subject to full cross-examination by an adequately counseled defendant. We cannot agree with the California court for two reasons, one of which involves rejection of the holding in People v. Johnson.

I

In January 1967, one Melvin Porter, a 16-year-old minor, was arrested for selling marihuana to an undercover police officer. Four days after his arrest, while in the custody of juvenile authorities, Porter named respondent Green as his supplier. As recounted later by one Officer Wade, Porter claimed that Green had called him earlier that month, had asked him to sell some “stuff” or “grass,” and had that same afternoon personally delivered a shopping bag containing 29 “baggies” of marihuana. It was from this supply that Porter had made his sale to the undercover officer. A week later, Porter testified at respondent’s preliminary hearing. He again named respondent as his supplier, although he now claimed that instead of personally delivering the marihuana, Green had showed him where to pick up the shopping bag, hidden in the bushes at Green’s parents’ house. Porter’s story at the preliminary hearing was subjected to extensive cross-examination by respondent’s counsel — the same counsel who represented respondent at his subsequent trial. At the conclusion of the hearing, respondent was charged with furnishing marihuana to a minor in violation of California law.

Respondent’s trial took place some two months later before a court sitting without a jury. The State’s chief witness was again young Porter. But this time Porter, in the words of the California Supreme Court, proved to be “markedly evasive and uncooperative on the stand.” People v. Green, 70 Cal. 2d 654, 657, 451 P. 2d 422, 423 (1969). He testified that respondent had called him in January 1967, and asked him to sell some unidentified “stuff.” He admitted obtaining shortly thereafter 29 plastic “baggies” of marihuana, some of which he sold. But when pressed as to whether respondent had been his supplier, Porter claimed that he was uncertain how he obtained the marihuana, primarily because he was at the time on “acid” (LSD), which he had taken 20 minutes before respondent phoned. Porter claimed that he was unable to remember the events that followed the phone call, and that the drugs he had taken prevented his distinguishing fact from fantasy. See, e. g., App. 7-11, 24-25.

At various points during Porter's direct examination, the prosecutor read excerpts from Porter’s preliminary hearing testimony. This evidence was admitted under § 1235 for the truth of the matter contained therein. With his memory “refreshed” by his preliminary hearing testimony, Porter “guessed” that he had indeed obtained the marihuana from the backyard of respondent’s parents’ home, and had given the money from its sale to respondent. On cross-examination, however, Porter indicated that it was his memory of the preliminary testimony which was “mostly” refreshed, rather than his memory of the events themselves, and he was still unsure of the actual episode. See App. 25. Later in the trial, Officer Wade testified, relating Porter’s earlier statement that respondent had personally delivered the marihuana. This statement was also admitted as substantive evidence. Porter admitted making the statement, App. 59, and insisted that he had been telling the truth as he then believed it both to Officer Wade and at the preliminary hearing; but he insisted that he was also telling the truth now in claiming inability to remember the actual events.

Respondent was convicted. The District Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the use of Porter’s prior statements for the truth of the matter asserted therein, denied respondent his right of confrontation under the California Supreme Court’s recent decision in People v. Johnson, supra. The California Supreme Court affirmed, finding itself “impelled” by recent decisions of this Court to hold § 1235 unconstitutional insofar as it permitted the substantive use of prior inconsistent statements of a witness, even though the statements were subject to cross-examination at a prior hearing. We granted the State’s petition for certiorari, 396 U. S. 1001 (1970).

I — !

The California Supreme Court construed the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to require the exclusion of Porter’s prior testimony offered in evidence to prove the State’s case against Green because, in the court’s view, neither the right to cross-examine Porter at the trial concerning his current and prior testimony, nor the opportunity to cross-examine Porter at the preliminary hearing satisfied the commands of the Confrontation Clause. We think the California court was wrong on both counts.

Positing that this ease posed an instance of a witness who gave trial testimony inconsistent with his prior, out-of-court statements,2 the California court, on the authority of its decision in People v. Johnson, supra, held that belated cross-examination before the trial court, “is not an adequate substitute for the right to cross-examination contemporaneous with the original testimony before a different tribunal.” People v. Green, supra, at 659, 451 P. 2d, at 425. We disagree.

Section 1235 of the California Evidence Code represents a considered choice by the California Legislature3 between two opposing positions concerning the extent to which a witness’ prior statements may be introduced at trial without violating hearsay rules of evidence. The orthodox view, adopted in most jurisdictions,4 has been that the out-of-court statements are inadmissible for the usual reasons that have led to the exclusion of hearsay statements: the statement may not have been made under oath; the declarant may not have been subjected to cross-examination when he made the statement; and the jury cannot observe the declarant’s demeanor at the time he made the statement. Accordingly, under this view, the statement may not be offered to show the truth of the matters asserted therein, but can be introduced under appropriate limiting instructions to impeach the credibility of the witness who has changed his story at trial.

In contrast, the minority view adopted in some jurisdictions 5 and supported by most legal commentators and by recent proposals to codify the law of evidence6 would permit the substantive use of prior inconsistent statements on the theory that the usual dangers of hearsay are largely nonexistent where the witness testifies at trial. “The whole purpose of the Hearsay rule has been already satisfied [because] the witness is present and subject to cross-examination [and] [t]here is ample opportunity to test him as to the basis for his former statement.”7

Our task in this case is not to decide which of these positions, purely as a matter of the law of evidence, is the sounder. The issue before us is the considerably narrower one of whether a defendant’s constitutional right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him” is necessarily inconsistent with a State’s decision to change its hearsay rules to reflect the minority view described above. While it may readily be conceded that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, it is quite a different thing to suggest that the overlap is complete and that the Confrontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of hearsay and their exceptions as they existed historically at common law. Our decisions have never established such a congruence; indeed, we have more than once found a violation of confrontation values even though the statements in issue were admitted under an arguably recognized hearsay exception. See Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719 (1968); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965). The converse is equally true: merely because evidence is admitted in violation of a long-established hearsay rule does not lead to the automatic conclusion that confrontation rights have been denied.8

Given the similarity of the values protected, however, the modification of a State’s hearsay rules to create new exceptions for the admission of evidence against a defendant, will often raise questions of compatibility with the defendant’s constitutional right to confrontation. Such questions require attention to the reasons for, and the basic scope of, the protections offered by the Confrontation Clause.

The origin and development of the hearsay rules and of the Confrontation Clause have been traced by others and need not be recounted in detail here.9 It is sufficient to note that the particular vice that gave impetus to the confrontation claim was the practice of trying defendants on “evidence” which consisted solely of ex parte affidavits or depositions secured by the examining magistrates, thus denying the defendant the opportunity to challenge his accuser in a face-to-face encounter in front of the trier of fact. Prosecuting attorneys “would frequently allege matters which the prisoner denied and called upon them to prove. The proof was usually given by reading depositions, confessions of accomplices, letters, and the like; and this occasioned frequent demands by the prisoner to have his ‘accusers/ i. e. the witnesses against him, brought before him face to face . .. . 10

But objections occasioned by this practice appear primarily to have been aimed at the failure to call the witness to confront personally the defendant at his trial. So far as appears, in claiming confrontation rights no objection was made against receiving a witness’ out-of-court depositions or statements, so long as the witness was present at trial to repeat his story and to explain or repudiate any conflicting prior stories before the trier of fact.

Our own decisions seem to have recognized at an early date that it is this literal right to “confront” the witness at the time of trial that forms the core of the values furthered by the Confrontation Clause:

“The primary object of the constitutional provision in question was to prevent depositions or ex parte affidavits, such as were sometimes admitted in civil cases, being used against the prisoner in lieu of a personal examination and cross-examination of the witness in which the accused has an opportunity, not only of testing the recollection and sifting the conscience of the witness, but of compelling him to stand face to face with the jury in order that they may look at him, and judge by his demeanor upon the stand and the manner in which he gives his testimony whether he is worthy of belief.” Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 242-243 (1895).

Viewed historically, then, there is good reason to conclude that the Confrontation Clause is not violated by admitting a declarant’s out-of-court statements, as long as the declarant is testifying as a witness and subject to full and effective cross-examination.

This conclusion is supported by comparing the purposes of confrontation with the alleged dangers in admitting an out-of-court statement. Confrontation: (1) insures that the witness will give his statements under oath — thus impressing him with the seriousness of the matter and guarding against the lie by the possibility of a penalty for perjury; (2) forces the witness to submit to cross-examination, the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth”;11 (3) permits the jury that is to decide the defendant’s fate to observe the demeanor of the witness in making his statement, thus aiding the jury in assessing his credibility.

It is, of course, true that the out-of-court statement may have been made under circumstances subject to none of these protections. But if the declarant is present and testifying at trial, the out-of-court statement for all practical purposes regains most of the lost protections. If the witness admits the prior statement is his, or if there is other evidence to show the statement is his, the danger of faulty reproduction is negligible and the jury can be confident that it has before it two conflicting statements by the same witness. Thus, as far as the oath is concerned, the witness must now affirm, deny, or qualify the truth of the prior statement under the penalty of perjury; indeed, the very fact that the prior statement was not given under a similar circumstance may become the witness’ explanation for its inaccuracy — an explanation a jury may be expected to understand and take into account in deciding which, if either, of the statements represents the truth.

Second, the inability to cross-examine the witness at the time he made his prior statement cannot easily be shown to be of crucial significance as long as the defendant is assured of full and effective cross-examination at the time of trial. The most successful cross-examination at the time the prior statement was made could hardly hope to accomplish more than has already been accomplished by the fact that the witness is now telling a different, inconsistent story, and — in this case — one that is favorable to the defendant. We cannot share the California Supreme Court’s view that belated cross-examination can never serve as a constitutionally adequate substitute for cross-examination contemporaneous with the original statement. The main danger in substituting subsequent for timely cross-examination seems to lie in the possibility that the witness’ “[f]alse testimony is apt to harden and become unyielding to the blows of truth in proportion as the witness has opportunity for reconsideration and influence by the suggestions of others, whose interest may be, and often is, to maintain falsehood rather than truth.” State v. Saporen, 205 Minn. 358, 362, 285 N. W. 898, 901 (1939). That danger, however, disappears when the witness has changed his testimony so that, far from “hardening,” his prior statement has softened to the point where he now repudiates it.12

The defendant’s task in cross-examination is, of course, no longer identical to the task that he would have faced if the witness had not changed his story and hence had to be examined as a “hostile” witness giving evidence for the prosecution. This difference, however, far from lessening, may actually enhance the defendant’s ability to attack the prior statement. For the witness, favorable to the defendant, should be more than willing to give the usual suggested explanations for the inaccuracy of his prior statement, such as faulty perception or undue haste in recounting the event. Under such circumstances, the defendant is not likely to be hampered in effectively attacking the prior statement, solely because his attack comes later in time.

Similar reasons lead us to discount as a constitutional matter the fact that the jury at trial is foreclosed from viewing the declarant’s demeanor when he first made his out-of-court statement. The witness who now relates a different story about the events in question must necessarily assume a position as to the truth value of his prior statement, thus giving the jury a chance to observe and evaluate his demeanor as he either disavows or qualifies his earlier statement. The jury is alerted by the inconsistency in the stories, and its attention is sharply focused on determining either that one of the stories reflects the truth or that the witness who has apparently lied once, is simply too lacking in credibility to warrant its believing either story. The defendant’s confrontation rights are not violated, even though some demeanor evidence that would have been relevant in resolving this credibility issue is forever lost.

It may be true that a jury would be in a better position to evaluate the truth of the prior statement if it could somehow be whisked magically back in time to witness a gruelling cross-examination of the declarant as he first gives his statement. But the question as we see it must be not whether one can somehow imagine the jury in “a better position,” but whether subsequent cross-examination at the defendant’s trial will still afford the trier of fact a satisfactory basis for evaluating the truth of the prior statement. On that issue, neither evidence13 nor reason convinces us that contemporaneous cross-examination before the ultimate trier of fact is so much more effective than subsequent examination that it must be made the touchstone of the Confrontation Clause.

Finally, we note that none of our decisions interpreting the Confrontation Clause requires excluding the out-of-court statements of a witness who is available and testifying at trial. The concern of most of our cases has been focused on precisely the opposite situation — situations where statements have been admitted in the absence of the declarant and without any chance to cross-examine him at trial. These situations have arisen through application of a number of traditional “exceptions” to the hearsay rule, which permit the introduction of evidence despite the absence of the declarant usually on the theory that the evidence possesses other indicia of “reliability” and is incapable of being admitted, despite good-faith efforts of the State, in any way that will secure confrontation with the declarant.14 Such exceptions, dispensing altogether with the literal right to “confrontation” and cross-examination, have been subjected on several occasions to careful scrutiny by this Court. In Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965), for example, the State introduced at defendant’s trial the transcript of a crucial witness’ testimony from a prior preliminary hearing. The witness himself, one Phillips, had left the jurisdiction and did not appear at trial. “Because the transcript of Phillips’ statement offered against petitioner at his trial had not been taken at a time and under circumstances affording petitioner through counsel an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Phillips,” 380 U. S., at 407, we held that its introduction violated the defendant’s confrontation rights. Similarly, in Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719 (1968), the State introduced the preliminary hearing testimony of an absent witness, incarcerated in a federal prison, under an “unavailability” exception to its hearsay rules. We held that that exception would not justify the denial of confrontation where the State had not made a good-faith effort to obtain the presence of the allegedly “unavailable” witness.

We have no occasion in the present case to map out a theory of the Confrontation Clause that would determine the validity of all such hearsay “exceptions” permitting the introduction of an absent declarant’s statements. For where the declarant is not absent, but is present to testify and to submit to cross-examination, our cases, if anything, support the conclusion that the admission of his out-of-court statements does not create a confrontation problem. Thus, in Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415 (1965), decided on the same day as Pointer, we reversed a conviction in which the prosecution read into the record an alleged confession of the defendant’s supposed accomplice, Loyd, who refused to testify on self-incrimination grounds. The confrontation problem arose precisely because Loyd could not be cross-examined as to his prior statement; had such cross-examination taken place, the opinion strongly suggests that the confrontation problem would have been nonexistent:

“In the circumstances of this case, petitioner’s inability to cross-examine Loyd as to the alleged confession plainly denied him the right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause.... Loyd could not be cross-examined on a statement imputed to but not admitted by him. .. . . [S]ince [the State’s] evidence tended to show only that Loyd made the confession, cross-examination . . . as to its genuineness could not substitute for cross-examination of Loyd to test the truth of the statement itself. . . .

“Hence, effective confrontation of Loyd was possible only if Loyd affirmed the statement as his.” 380 U. S., at 419-420.

Again, in Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968), the Court found a violation of confrontation rights in the admission of a codefendant’s confession, implicating Bruton, where the co-defendant did not take the stand. The Court again emphasized that the error arose because the declarant “does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination,” 391 U. S., at 136, suggesting that no confrontation problem would have existed if Bruton had been able to cross-examine his co-defendant.15 Cf. Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250, 252-253 (1969). Indeed, Bruton’s refusal to regard limiting instructions as capable of curing the error, suggests that there is little difference as far as the Constitution is concerned between permitting prior inconsistent statements to be used only for impeachment purposes, and permitting them to be used for substantive purposes as well.

We find nothing, then, in either the history or the purposes of the Confrontation Clause, or in the prior decisions of this Court, that compels the conclusion reached by the California Supreme Court concerning the validity of California’s § 1235. Contrary to the judgment of that court, the Confrontation Clause does not require excluding from evidence the prior statements of a witness who concedes making the statements, and who may be asked to defend or otherwise explain the inconsistency between his prior and his present version of the events in question, thus opening himself to full cross-examination at trial as to both stories.

1 — i hH

We also think that Porter’s preliminary hearing testimony was admissible as far as the Constitution is concerned wholly apart from the question of whether respondent had an effective opportunity for confrontation at the subsequent trial. For Porter’s statement at the preliminary hearing had already been given under circumstances closely approximating those that surround the typical trial. Porter was under oath; respondent was represented by counsel — the same counsel in fact who later represented him at the trial; respondent had every opportunity to cross-examine Porter as to his statement; and the proceedings were conducted before a judicial tribunal, equipped to provide a judicial record of the hearings. Under these circumstances, Porter’s statement would, we think, have been admissible at trial even in Porter’s absence if Porter had been actually unavailable, despite good-faith efforts of the State to produce him. That being the case, we do not think a different result should follow where the witness is actually produced.

This Court long ago held that admitting the prior testimony of an unavailable witness does not violate the Confrontation Clause. Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237 (1895). That case involved testimony given at the defendant’s first trial by a witness who had died by the time of the second trial, but we do not find the instant preliminary hearing significantly different from an actual trial to warrant distinguishing the two cases for purposes of the Confrontation Clause. Indeed, we indicated as much in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 407 (1965), where we noted that “[t]he case before us would be quite a different one had Phillips’ statement been taken at a full-fledged hearing at which petitioner had been represented by counsel who had been given a complete and adequate opportunity to cross-examine.” And in Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719, 725-726 (1968), although noting that the preliminary hearing is ordinarily a less searching exploration into the merits of a case than a trial, we recognized that “there may be some justification for holding that the opportunity for cross-examination of a witness at a preliminary hearing satisfies the demands of the confrontation clause where the witness is shown to be actually unavailable . . .. In the present case respondent’s counsel does not appear to have been significantly limited in any way in the scope or nature of his cross-examination of the witness Porter at the preliminary hearing. If Porter had died or was otherwise unavailable, the Confrontation Clause would not have been violated by admitting his testimony given at the preliminary hearing — the right of cross-examination then afforded provides substantial compliance with the purposes behind the confrontation requirement, as long as the declarant’s inability to give live testimony is in no way the fault of the State. Compare Barber v. Page, supra, with Motes v. United States, 178 U. S. 458 (1900).

But nothing in Barber v. Page or in other cases in this Court indicates that a different result must follow where the State produces the declarant and swears him as a witness at the trial. It may be that the rules of evidence applicable in state or federal courts would restrict resort to prior sworn testimony where the declarant is present at the trial. But as a constitutional matter, it is untenable to construe the Confrontation Clause to permit the use of prior testimony to prove the State’s case where the declarant never appears, but to bar that testimony where the declarant is present at the trial, exposed to the defendant and the trier of fact, and subject to cross-examination.16 As in the case where the witness is physically unproducible, the State here has made every effort to introduce its evidence through the live testimony of the witness; it produced Porter at trial, swore him as a witness, and tendered him for cross-examination. Whether Porter then testified in a manner consistent or inconsistent with his preliminary hearing testimony, claimed a loss of memory, claimed his privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, or simply refused to answer, nothing in the Confrontation Clause prohibited the State from also relying on his prior testimony to prove its case against Green.17

IV

There is a narrow question lurking in this case concerning the admissibility of Porter’s statements to Officer Wade. In the typical case to which the California court addressed itself, the witness at trial gives a version of the ultimate events different from that given on a prior occasion. In such a case, as our holding in Part II makes clear, we find little reason to distinguish among prior inconsistent statements on the basis of the circumstances under which the prior statements were given. The subsequent opportunity for cross-examination at trial with respect to both present and past versions of the event, is adequate to make equally admissible, as far as the Confrontation Clause is concerned, both the casual, off-hand remark to a stranger, and the carefully recorded testimony at a prior hearing., Here, however, Porter claimed at trial that he could not remember the events that occurred after respondent telephoned him and hence failed to give any current version of the more important events described in his earlier statement.

Whether Porter’s apparent lapse of memory so affected Green’s right to cross-examine as to make a critical difference in the application of the Confrontation Clause in this case18 is an issue which is not ripe for decision at this juncture. The state court did not focus on this precise question, which was irrelevant given its broader and erroneous premise that an out-of-court statement of a witness is inadmissible as substantive evidence, whatever the nature of the opportunity to cross-examine at the trial. Nor has either party addressed itself to the question. Its resolution depends much upon the unique facts in this record, and we are reluctant to proceed without the state court’s views of what the record actually discloses relevant to this particular issue. What is more, since we hold that the admission of Porter’s preliminary hearing testimony is not barred by the Sixth Amendment despite his apparent lapse of memory, the reception into evidence of the Porter statement to Officer Wade may pose a harmless-error question which is more appropriately resolved by the California courts in the first instance. Similarly, faced on remand with our decision that § 1235 is not invalid on its face, the California Supreme Court may choose to dispose of the case on other grounds raised by Green but not passed upon by that court; for example, because of its ruling on § 1235, the California court deliberately put aside the issue of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain conviction.19

We therefore vacate the judgment of the California Supreme Court and remand the case to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.