Robert E. Shaffer v. Harold v. Field, Superintendent of California Men's Colony, San Luis Obispo, California

Before MERRILL, BROWNING, and WALLACE, Circuit Judges.

Petitioner was convicted of a violation of California Penal Code § 187. After exhausting state remedies he applied for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The district court denied the writ. See Shaffer v. Field, 339 F.Supp. 997 (C.D.Cal.1972).

Considering the issues in the order presented in the district court’s opinion, we hold as follows:

1. Admission of the spontaneous statements of the dying victim did not violate petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. “The determination of whether, in a particular case, the application of a recognized exception to the hearsay rule satisfies the requirements of the Confrontation Clause . . . calls for an examination of all the circumstances of the case. The relevant factual inquiry is whether, under the circumstances, the unavailability of the declarant for cross-examination deprived the jury of a satisfactory basis for evaluating the truth of the extrajudicial declaration.” United States v. Adams, 446 F.2d 681, 683 (9th Cir. 1971). The trustworthiness of spontaneous statements is established on…