Dawkins

Under Penal Code section 872, subdivision (b), added by Proposition 115 (Cal. Const., art. I, § 30, subd. (b)), probable cause at a preliminary examination may be based in whole or in part on hearsay testimony by law enforcement officers with less than five years of law enforcement experience who have completed a training course on investigating and reporting of cases and testifying at preliminary hearings which has been certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (hereafter, POST). In this case we hold the officer may testify to completing a course on these subjects, and certification of the course by POST may be established by the use of judicial notice of POST’s administrative regulations.

I

Facts

On February 17, 1992, Tito Dawkins was charged by information with two counts of first degree burglary. (§§ 459, 460, subd. (a).) At Dawkins’s preliminary hearing, Officer Charles Nason of the El Cerrito Police Department testified to hearsay statements which were made to him by two citizen witnesses. This hearsay testimony was admitted pursuant to section 872, subdivision (b), which was enacted as part of Proposition 115, the “Crime Victims Justice…