State v. Cesar A. Sepulveda, 161 Idaho 79

Background

On Dec. 27, 2013, police responded to an incident at Sepulveda’s apartment; methamphetamine and a pipe were found on him and he was charged with attempted strangulation and misdemeanor injury to a child; a no-contact order was entered prohibiting contact with L.M.
While in custody, Sepulveda placed recorded calls asking others to tell L.M. not to appear in court; he was charged with felony intimidating a witness and two counts of attempted violation of a no-contact order.
L.M. testified at the preliminary hearing that Sepulveda choked her; on cross-examination the magistrate sustained relevance objections to questions about methamphetamine use a few days before the incident and about self-harm.
Months later, prior to trial, L.M. died by overdose; the State moved to admit her preliminary hearing testimony at trial and to exclude evidence of the cause of death; the district court admitted the prior testimony and excluded cause-of-death evidence as irrelevant.
A jury convicted Sepulveda of domestic battery, injury to a child, felony intimidating a witness, and two counts of attempted violation of a no-contact order; he appealed claiming Confrontation Clause, right-to-present-a-defense, and double jeopardy violations.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether admission of L.M.’s preliminary hearing testimony violated the Confrontation Clause	State: L.M. was unavailable and Sepulveda had an adequate prior opportunity to cross-examine	Sepulveda: Magistrate curtailed cross-examination (relevance objection re: meth use a few days prior), denying an adequate opportunity to confront and impeach L.M.	Court: No violation — testimony was testimonial, L.M. unavailable, but cross-examination opportunity was adequate; the relevance ruling did not prevent impeachment of day-of-incident use and no new material line of cross was shown
Whether exclusion of evidence about L.M.’s cause of death violated right to present a defense	State: Cause of death (months later) was irrelevant to credibility about the incident date	Sepulveda: Cause of death (overdose involving meth) would impeach L.M.’s denial of meth use and support his defense theory	Court: No violation — evidence of death months later was not relevant to her testimony about the day of the incident; defendants have no right to present irrelevant evidence
Whether convictions for intimidating a witness and attempted no-contact violations violate Idaho double jeopardy (pleading theory)	State: Counts as charged are distinct; pleading does not show one offense is included in the other	Sepulveda: Intimidating a witness was the means for the attempted no-contact violations and thus is a lesser-included offense under the pleading theory	Court: No double jeopardy — the informations for the no-contact attempts do not allege the elements/means of the intimidating charge, so intimidating is not a lesser included offense under the pleading theory
Whether cumulative error requires reversal	State: No prejudicial errors to cumulate	Sepulveda: Multiple rulings cumulatively deprived a fair trial	Court: No cumulative error because no individual errors were found

Key Cases Cited

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (testimonial-statement principle under the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause)
Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (distinguishing testimonial statements and requiring prior opportunity for cross-examination)
Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (Confrontation Clause made applicable to states)
Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673 (limits on excluding cross-examination bearing on witness bias)
Delaware v. Fensterer, 474 U.S. 15 (Confrontation Clause guarantees opportunity for effective, not perfect, cross-examination)
Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299 (test for separate statutory offenses)
State v. Richardson, 156 Idaho 524 (Idaho guidance on what constitutes an adequate prior opportunity to cross-examine)
State v. White, 97 Idaho 708 (error where court cut off cross-examination on important credibility issue)
State v. Meister, 148 Idaho 236 (right to present a defense does not include irrelevant evidence)
State v. McKinney, 153 Idaho 837 (Idaho double jeopardy/pleading-theory framework)