P v. Sanchez (Cal. SC) Case Specific Out-Of-Court Statements Treated By Gang Expert As True To Support His Opinion Are Hearsay

Mr. Sanchez, seeing police, took off and ran into a stranger's apartment where he holed up in the bathroom.  The police arrested him and noticed on a tarpaulin outside the bathroom window a loaded gun and four packages of methamphetamine.  Sanchez was charged with being a felon in possession of a gun, possessing drugs while armed with a loaded gun, and actively participating in a criminal street gang.  Also alleged was a gang enhancement and a prior prison term.

At trial the State called a veteran policeman to testify as an expert witness on the topic of gangs.  He detailed his education and experience in the field of gangs.  Then, he testified as to statements that Sanchez had made to another police officer while that officer was giving Sanchez a notice that the police considered him to be associating with a gang.  The expert further testified as to facts within police reports involving Sanchez, of which the expert had no first-hand knowledge.  

Then the expert was asked to opine, given a hypothetical assuming the above facts were true, whether the gun and meth found on the tarp would have been benefited the gang.  Unsurprisingly, he answered, "yes".  A jury convicted Sanchez on all counts.  Sanchez appealed.

An appellate court reversed the active participation count, but otherwise affirmed.  The California Supreme Court granted review and now reverses the gang enhancement based on the prejudicial error of admitting inadmissible hearsay.

In a unanimous opinion, the Court does a nice job of tackling a dirty job that was in dire need of attention.  The issue is whether the expert's testimony as to other officer's observations were hearsay, specifically whether or not they were offered for their truth.  

What drives the analysis is a little history lesson.  The current mess was created, in large part, due to a blurring of the line between general knowledge expert testimony and factual case specific testimony.  The Court now reestablishes that line.  When the expert in Sanchez's case testified as to the operations of the gang at issue, that was fine.  But when Sanchez testified as to statements of other officers that were specific to Sanchez, these were inadmissible hearsay as they were clearly offered for their truth.  Thankfully, the opinion swats away the excerebrose argument that the statements weren't offered for their truth, pointing out that if they weren't offered for their truth, the expert's opinion would have been irrelevant (and a jury instructions that charges the jury with evaluating the truth of the facts underlying an expert's opinion).

Now, in order for expert witnesses to opine on hypotheticals based upon assumed facts, those facts must be established by admissible evidence.