Does the use of a police officer's preliminary hearing testimony in a search and seizure case violate a defendant's right to confrontation?

On appeal, defendant wisely does not claim that the trial court's use of the officer's preliminary hearing testimony violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. (California v. Green (1970) 399 U.S. 149, 165-168, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489.) Rather, he correctly points out that section 1538.5, subdivision (i) of the Penal Code entitled him to "litigate the validity of a search or seizure de novo on the basis of the evidence presented at a special hearing." There can be no question that ordinary rules of evidence apply at such special hearing and, absent a stipulation, no exception to the Evidence Code permitted the court to use the officer's preliminary hearing testimony. (Hewitt v. Superior Court (1970) 5 Cal.App.3d 923, 927-928, 85 Cal.Rptr. 493.)