Thomas v. Hubbard

In Thomas v. Hubbard (9th Cir. 2001) 273 F.3d 1164, defendant was convicted of first degree murder arising from a stabbing in the parking lot of an apartment building. The police "never located the murder weapon and had no physical evidence linking defendant to the crime," (Thomas, supra, 273 F.3d at p. 1168), and the prosecution's case at trial "was based almost entirely on the eyewitness testimony of a single accusing witness (Schwab) who himself had the opportunity and a possible motive to commit the offense . . . ." (Ibid.) On review of the district court's denial of a petition for writ of habeas corpus, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the "cumulative effect of three significant trial errors . . . required the issuance of the writ." (Id. at p. 1181.) One of those errors was the trial court's decision to "cut off all inquiry" regarding the investigating police officer's difficulty in locating Schwab for two months after the murder took place. (Id. at p. 1176.) The Court noted that there are "some cases in which out-of-court statements are so prejudicial that a jury would be unable to disregard their substantive content regardless of the purpose for which they are introduced and regardless of any curative instruction. . . . In such instances, the effect of the testimony on the jury is the same as it would be if the statements were admitted for the truth of their contents. Thus, whether or not such statements are classified as hearsay, they may violate the Confrontation Clause." (Thomas, supra, 273 F.3d at p. 1173 violation of Confrontation Clause where witness statement introduced for nonhearsay purpose of rebuttal "provided the only evidence that Thomas had both a motive to kill Luke and access to the type of weapon used to commit the crime".) The federal appellate court held a confrontation clause violation could not have been cured by an admonition not to consider the testimony for its truth because the statements were so highly prejudicial--statements that provided evidence that the defendant possessed a weapon and a motive to use it on the victim, along with a statement that the defendant had a violent confrontation with the victim on the same day as the fatal stabbing. (Id. at pp. 1172-1173.)