Ubiles v. People

I agree with the majority that the People introduced sufficient evidence to sustain Ubiles’s convictions. I write separately because I would reach the merits of Ubiles’s Confrontation Clause challenge, but conclude that his constitutional rights were not violated when the People failed to call Lt. Jarvis as a witness.

I. WAIVER

As a threshold matter, it is well-established that waiver is a non-jurisdictional, judicially-created doctrine, and thus an appellate court may “exercise[ ] its discretion to bypass [a] relatively complex waiver issue and resolve [the] appeal on the merits” if the issue…