In re Thomas

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A jury convicted Melvin Hiram Thomas II in 2003 for receiving a stolen vehicle and active participation in a criminal street gang. To support the gang conviction, the State offered a gang expert whose testimony included testimonial, out-of-court statements about the specific facts of Thomas’s case. On direct appeal, Thomas challenged the admissibility of the gang expert’s testimony as testimonial hearsay which violated his Sixth Amendment confrontation rights under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Another panel of the Court of Appeal court concluded Crawford did not undermine the established rule that experts may testify about the bases of their opinions without running afoul of hearsay and confrontation clause problems because such evidence was not submitted for the truth of the matter, as the California Supreme Court held in California v. Gardeley, 14 Cal.4th 605 (1996). Subsequently, in California v. Sanchez, 63 Cal.4th 665 (2016), the California Supreme Court rejected the Gardeley rule and held introducing out-of-court testimonial statements about case-specific facts through an expert witness violated the confrontation clause (as interpreted in Crawford) unless the person who made the statement is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Thomas sought habeas relief from the Court of Appeal, claiming his conviction for active participation in a criminal street gang was invalid after Sanchez, which established a new rule the Court should apply retrospectively to his case. The Court of Appeal concluded the Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989) retroactivity standard governing federal habeas petitions didn't govern California habeas petitions, but concluded Sanchez wasn't retroactive under the three-factor analysis set out by the California Supreme Court in In re Johnson, 3 Cal.3d 404 (1970) and other decisions. The Court therefore denied relief. View "In re Thomas" on Justia Law