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Giles Not the Case To Expand Forfeiture By Wrongdoing

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Today's Supreme Court oral arguments in Giles v. California started and ended well for the Petitioner, Giles, a man who was convicted for the first degree murder of his former girlfriend Brenda Avie. In today's arguments, Petitioner contested the admissibility of a testimonial statement Avie had made to police officers following a domestic dispute between the Petitioner and Avie. The domestic dispute occurred sometime before Giles shot Avie in what he claimed was self-defense. At Giles' murder trial, the California court allowed the officer to testify about Avie's statements. The statements were admitted under California's rules of evidence as evidence of Giles' propensity to commit acts of domestic violence. Throughout her main argument, Petitioner's attorney stuck with the point that the Confrontation Clause as understood by the Framers, as well as the common law, prohibited a testimonial statement from being admitted as evidence unless other evidence showed the defendant intended to tamper with the witness and prevent his testimony at trial...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).