## Facts

- Damon Del Cambre was charged with robbing a bank.
- Police interviewed Thomas Owens, who admitted participating in the robbery and gave statements that implicated Cambre.
- At Cambre’s trial, the prosecution called Owens to testify.
- Owens responded to every question—including questions with obvious answers—by saying he did not recall.
- The trial court allowed the prosecution to introduce Owens’s police-interview answers as prior inconsistent statements.
- Cambre’s attorney did not cross-examine Owens.
- Cambre was convicted and appealed, arguing that admitting Owens’s out-of-court interview answers, together with the absence of cross-examination, violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.

## Issues

1. Does a witness’s claimed lack of memory at trial allow the prosecution to introduce the witness’s prior police-interview answers as prior inconsistent statements?
2. Does admitting a witness’s police-interview statements violate the Confrontation Clause when the witness testifies at trial but asserts pervasive memory loss and the defense does not cross-examine?

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal rejected Cambre’s Confrontation Clause challenge.
- The court upheld the trial court’s admission of Owens’s police-interview answers as prior inconsistent statements despite Owens’s claimed lack of memory at trial.
- The judgment of conviction was affirmed.

## Legal Principles

- A witness’s claimed lack of recollection at trial may be treated as “inconsistent” with a prior statement for purposes of admitting the prior statement as a prior inconsistent statement when the trial court finds the witness’s memory loss is feigned or evasive.
- For Confrontation Clause purposes, the Constitution generally requires an opportunity for cross-examination; when the declarant appears at trial and is subject to questioning, confrontation is ordinarily satisfied even if the witness claims memory loss.
- A defendant’s decision not to cross-examine a witness who is present and testifying does not convert the admission of the witness’s prior statements into a Confrontation Clause violation.
- Police interview statements are typically testimonial, but testimonial statements may be used consistently with the Confrontation Clause when the declarant testifies at trial and is available to be questioned about the prior statements.

## Conclusion

People v. Cambre involved the admission of an accomplice’s prior police-interview answers after the accomplice took the stand and claimed he could not remember anything; because the accomplice testified at trial and could be questioned, and because the prior statements were treated as prior inconsistent statements, the Court of Appeal held that their admission did not violate the Confrontation Clause and affirmed the conviction.


People v. Cambre, B168754, B171836, 2004 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 7369 (2004)