In Walker v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court today holds that certain hearsay evidence is inadmissible at preliminary, probable cause hearings on petitions to civilly commit offenders under the Sexually Violent Predator Act.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar concludes that even at the hearing, which occurs prior to a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt commitment trial, the superior court cannot consider hearsay evidence in psychological evaluation reports about conduct that, although criminal, does not qualify as the type of offense that is a prerequisite to an SVP commitment. The court concludes, “neither the Legislature nor our case law has created a hearsay exception allowing admission of hearsay accounts involving prior, nonpredicate allegations or convictions at SVPA probable cause hearings.”
Although signing the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye separately concurs to urge legislative action, including the creation of a hearsay exception that the court today holds doesn’t now exist. She is “concerned . . . that our ruling will complicate, if not frustrate, the intended screening function of SVP probable cause hearings,” and she wants “the Legislature to provide additional guidance addressing the proper conduct of such hearings” because current guidance “is generous[ly] . . . characteriz[ed]” by the majority “as ‘spare.’ ”
The court’s opinion says the Legislature “can choose to permit hearsay involving prior nonpredicate crimes to come in through evaluation reports,” but it eschews “taking a position on whether such an exception ought to exist.”
The court reverses the First District, Division Four, Court of Appeal, which had disagreed with 2019 decisions by the Second District, Division Two, and by the First District, Division One.
