People v. Sanchez is the 2016 California Supreme Court decision that stopped expert witnesses from telling juries case-specific facts drawn from police reports, records, and other out-of-court sources unless those facts are independently admissible.1Justia Law. People v. Sanchez Before the ruling, experts routinely relayed such details by claiming they were only explaining the basis for an opinion. The court called that a fiction. Juries treat those details as true no matter what a limiting instruction says, so the details are hearsay and have to come in the same way any other evidence would.
The Case Behind the Rule
Miguel Sanchez was charged in Santa Ana with firearm and drug offenses, active participation in a street gang, and a sentencing enhancement alleging he committed the crimes for the benefit of the “Delhi” street gang.2California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 186.22 To prove the gang connection, prosecutors called a police detective as a gang expert. The detective had no personal knowledge of Sanchez. He based his opinion on police reports and state-issued “STEP notices” documenting Sanchez’s past contacts with officers, and he told the jury the specific contents of those documents, including statements Sanchez had allegedly made during prior encounters.
The officers who wrote those reports and notices never testified. Sanchez had no way to question them. The Supreme Court reversed the gang enhancement and used the case to redraw the line for expert testimony statewide.
Background Knowledge Versus Case-Specific Facts
The heart of the ruling is a distinction that experts and attorneys now have to work with in every trial.
General background knowledge is fair game. An expert can testify to what she has absorbed through training, education, and professional experience, even though that knowledge ultimately came from hearsay sources like textbooks, studies, or conversations with colleagues. A gang expert can explain that a particular gang uses a certain symbol, claims a certain neighborhood, or feuds with a certain rival. A medical expert can explain how a drug works in the body. A pharmacology expert can testify that a particular pill imprint identifies a specific drug and dosage, because that is general reference information any expert in the field would know.1Justia Law. People v. Sanchez
Case-specific facts are different. These are details about the particular defendant, victim, or events in this case. An expert saying “I read in a police report that Sanchez admitted being a Delhi member during a 2009 traffic stop” is relaying a case-specific fact. So is an expert saying “I read in the police report that Jimmy was 15 feet away, so I concluded that…” Those facts have to come into evidence through their own proper channel. The expert cannot be the delivery vehicle.
The reason is practical. A jury told that a defendant confessed gang membership to an officer during a prior stop cannot un-hear that detail, and no instruction telling them to consider it “only for basis” will change how they use it. So the court treated it as what it actually is: evidence offered for its truth, which means hearsay, which means it needs to be admissible on its own terms.
What Experts Can Still Do
Sanchez did not slam the door on case-specific facts reaching the jury through an expert. It required them to enter through a legitimate opening.1Justia Law. People v. Sanchez Two paths work.
The first is a recognized hearsay exception. Medical records commonly qualify as business records. If the attorney lays that foundation, a physician expert can reference what a treating doctor documented. Similar exceptions cover a range of records depending on how they were created and kept.
The second is independent admission. If the officer who wrote a report testifies and is cross-examined, the facts in that report are no longer unconfronted hearsay, and an expert can then rely on them openly. The same is true when a third-party witness is deposed or when opposing counsel stipulates to admitting particular records. What the ruling forbids is skipping this step and using the expert as a shortcut.
The Confrontation Clause Layer in Criminal Cases
In criminal prosecutions, the ruling has a constitutional dimension on top of the hearsay analysis. The Sixth Amendment gives a defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against” him.3Constitution Annotated. Amdt6.5.1 Early Confrontation Clause Cases When the gang expert at Sanchez’s trial recited the contents of police reports and STEP notices, he was, in effect, delivering the statements of officers who never took the stand.
Under Crawford v. Washington, the Confrontation Clause bars “testimonial” out-of-court statements offered against a criminal defendant unless the speaker is available for cross-examination.4Law.Cornell.Edu. Crawford v. Washington Testimonial statements are ones made under circumstances where the speaker would reasonably expect them to be used in prosecution: formal reports, police interrogation notes, sworn affidavits. The STEP notices and police reports in Sanchez’s case were prepared to document suspected gang activity for potential use in court, which placed them squarely on the testimonial side of the line. Letting the expert recite them let the prosecution get around confrontation. The court held that was unconstitutional.
Non-testimonial statements do not raise the same problem. A 911 call reporting an ongoing emergency is generally not testimonial because its purpose is getting help.5LII / Legal Information Institute. Admissibility of Testimonial Statements Where case-specific hearsay comes from a non-testimonial source and fits an exception, the constitutional barrier does not apply, though the evidentiary rule still does.
What Sanchez Did to Civil Trials
Although the case was a criminal prosecution, the California Supreme Court framed its evidentiary analysis around the Evidence Code sections that govern expert testimony generally.6California Legislative Information. California Evidence Code 801 The hearsay portion of the ruling applies in civil cases too. The Confrontation Clause does not, because it is a criminal defendant’s right, but the evidentiary restriction alone has been enough to reshape civil trial practice.
Medical experts in personal injury cases can no longer freely recount what treating physicians wrote if those notes have not been independently admitted. Life care planners cannot simply relay billed amounts from unauthenticated records. Defense experts referencing surveillance reports or investigator summaries face the same objection.
The workarounds are familiar but add preparation time and cost:
- Stipulations to admit specific records, such as medical charts, without calling a custodian.
- Depositions of treating physicians, investigators, or other third parties, which preserves their statements as testimony the expert can reference.
- Laying a proper foundation for the business records exception, or another statutory exception, before the expert takes the stand.
Judges no longer overrule a hearsay objection by pointing out that the information goes to the expert’s basis. That escape hatch is closed.
Where Federal Courts Diverge
California practitioners moving into federal court should not assume the Sanchez line follows them. Federal Rule of Evidence 703 lets experts base opinions on otherwise inadmissible facts if experts in the field would reasonably rely on that type of information.7Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. Rule 703 – Bases of an Expert The expert can disclose those underlying facts to the jury when their value in helping the jury evaluate the opinion substantially outweighs the risk of prejudice, paired with a limiting instruction telling the jury to use the information only for evaluating the opinion. Sanchez rejected that same instruction as unrealistic in California courts.
Crawford still applies everywhere, so testimonial hearsay against a criminal defendant remains a constitutional problem in any court. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s fractured decision in Williams v. Illinois left room for experts in federal cases to reference out-of-court forensic reports without necessarily crossing the Confrontation Clause, at least where the report itself is not admitted and was not created to accuse a specific, targeted individual.8Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Williams v. Illinois The federal picture is more permissive than California’s, and the two systems have to be prepared for separately.