CALIFORNIA EVIDENCE: CIVIL AND CRIMINAL
...Hearsay Except. Requiring Unavail
......Exception: Former Testimony
.........Effect of Cross-Exam. at Prior Hearing
............Similar Interest and Motive
15 Cards On This Topic:
  • Deceased W's testimony from D's TX murder trial properly admitted under EC §1291 as D had a sufficiently similar interest and motive in cross-examining W during both trials.
  • The motives to cross-examine a witness at a prior hearing and the trial need not be mutually exclusive with the other; motives need not be identical, only similar.
  • The possibility that current counsel would have cross-examined a witness differently or more searchingly does not, in itself, render the prior testimony inadmissible under EC §1291.
  • The burden to establish the conditions of the exception to the hearsay rule articulated by section 1291(a)(2) rests with the ••proponent•• of admission.
  • Checklist to determine whether to exclude prior deposition testimony from unavailable witness.
  • Trial court did not err in admitting portions of coD's cross of W at joint prelim. where D had opportunity to cross-examine W at prelim. with an interest and motive similar to that at trial.
  • Trial court properly, if implicitly, concluded D's "motive and interest" in cross-examining deceased W at prelim and trial were sufficiently similar to satisfy requirements of EC 1291.
  • D's had opportunity to cross-examine V1, who was later killed and unavailable, at prelim. hearing, in long exam that challenged his credibility, satisfying confrontation clause.
  • D's motives for cross-examining W during prelim hearing sufficiently similar to those at trial so as to permit admission of prelim testimony; D had opportunity to cross-examine.
  • As People did not have opportunity to cross-examine the witness with an 'interest and motive similar to' that which they had at trial, pretrial hearing testimony properly excluded."
  • Admission at D's retrial of former testimony by W now unavailable was proper under Evid. Code §1291 (a)(2); D's "interest and motive" in cross-exam identical at both trials.
  • There is no categorical bar to admitting former deposition testimony under EC §1291 based on the premise that a party's motive to examine its witnesses at deposition always differs from its motive to do so at trial.
  • D who killed victim after her testimony at prelim had similar motive to cross-examine her at trial. Her prior testimony properly admitted.
  • In product liability case, depositions of manufacturer's employees inadmissible against distributor.
  • Use of prior testimony against non-party; similar motive found.