Correa

In the present case, investigating officers testified at defendant’s preliminary hearing regarding extrajudicial statements made by the Spanish-speaking victim of the alleged crimes and by another Spanish-speaking witness. The officers did not understand Spanish, but received the statements of the victim and the witness through contemporaneous translations provided by apparently unbiased bystanders during the officers’ investigation of the crimes. The persons who acted as translators during these interviews also testified at the preliminary hearing regarding their language skills and the circumstances of the translation.

Defendant acknowledges that, by virtue of provisions adopted as part of Proposition 115 more than a decade ago, qualified police officers generally are permitted to relate the statements of out-of-court declarants at a preliminary hearing. She contends, however, that because of the role played by the translators during the out-of-court interviews, the officers’ testimony in the present case constituted inadmissible multiple hearsay. The officers were recounting the statements of the translators, she contends, not those of the original declarants. The…

I agree with the majority’s holding that a sufficiently reliable translated statement is not hearsay. I write separately to emphasize that our opinion does not alter a defendant’s confrontation clause rights at a preliminary hearing. In People v. Miranda (2000) 23 Cal.4th 340, 354 [ 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 758 , 1 P.3d 73 ], we held that the admission of single-level hearsay at a preliminary hearing does not violate a defendant’s confrontation clause rights. Our opinion today goes no further.

Under the language-conduit theory, once the accuracy and reliability of a translation is established, we consider the translated statement to be that of the original speaker. Consequently, we find that such a translation does not interpose a layer of hearsay. The confrontation clause concerns raised in the present case, then, relate to the introduction of single-level hearsay between the original declarant and the testifying officer. As we noted in Miranda , Proposition 115 “provides the defendant with opportunities at the preliminary examination to cross-examine and evaluate the testimony of a qualified *468 law enforcement officer relating single-level hearsay, and to call specified defense…

Tony Rackauckas, District Attorney, Stephan Sauer and Brian F. Fitzpatrick, Deputy District Attorneys, for Real Party in Interest.

Steve Cooley, District Attorney (Los Angeles), George M. Palmer, Head Deputy District Attorney, and Shirley S.N. Sun, Deputy District Attorney, for Appellate Committee of the California District Attorneys Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest.

GEORGE, C.J.

In the present case, investigating officers testified at defendant's preliminary hearing regarding extrajudicial statements made by the Spanish-speaking victim of the alleged crimes and by another Spanish-speaking witness. The officers did not understand Spanish, but received the statements of the victim and the witness through contemporaneous translations provided by apparently unbiased bystanders during the officers' investigation of the crimes. The persons who acted as translators during these interviews also testified at the preliminary hearing regarding their language skills and the circumstances of the translation.

Defendant acknowledges that, by virtue of provisions adopted as part of Proposition 115 more than a decade ago, qualified police officers generally are…