Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-637_10n2.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

to  [the  federal]  question,”  Capital  City  Dairy  Co.  v.  Ohio, 
183  U. S.  238,  248  (1902);  see  also  Marvin  v.  Trout,  199 
U. S. 212, 223 (1905).  Put simply, there must have been a 
“real contest . . . upon” the federal claim in state court.  Mor-
rison v. Watson, 154 U. S. 111, 115 (1894); accord, Illinois 
v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 222–223 (1983). 

Here, there was no contest upon any federal claim in the
New  York  Court  of  Appeals.  In  his  briefing  before  that 
court, Hemphill asserted that the “only issue before [that] 
Court [was] whether the defense opened the door to Mor-
ris’s testimonial hearsay.”  App. 385 (emphasis added).  To 
that end, Hemphill argued that his defense’s presentation 
of evidence was not “misleading” under Massie, Reid, and 
other  cases.  See  App.  386–387.  Of  course,  whether 
Hemphill triggered New York’s “substantive principle of ev-
idence,” ante, at 10, is a question of state law “not subject to 
review  here,”  Moore  v.  Illinois,  408  U. S.  786,  799  (1972); 
see also Hiawassee River Power Co. v. Carolina-Tennessee 
Power Co., 252 U. S. 341, 343 (1920).  Federal law does not 
govern  whether  a  defendant’s  presentation  of  his  case  is
“misleading.”  Thus,  Hemphill  pressed  only  a  state-law 
claim in the New York Court of Appeals. 

True,  Hemphill  cited  one  Sixth  Amendment  precedent, 
Crawford  v.  Washington,  541  U. S.  36  (2004),  and  stated 
that “the introduction of Morris’s guilty plea minutes vio-
lated  [his]  Sixth  Amendment  right.”    App. 385.    But 
Hemphill reached that conclusion not because there was a 
“real contest . . . upon” the constitutionality of the Reid rule, 
Morrison,  154  U. S.,  at  115,  but  rather  because  the  trial 
court  misapplied  Reid  and  thus  improperly  admitted  un-
confronted  testimonial  hearsay. 
Put  another  way, 
Hemphill  never  argued  that  evidence  that  complied  with 
Reid  violated  the  Confrontation  Clause.  To  the  contrary,
Hemphill  understood  Reid  to  be  constitutional.  As 
Hemphill explained, “both the trial judge and the Appellate