Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-899_97be.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

she followed, the tests (she said) she performed, and the re-
sults (she said) she obtained.  The State offered up that ev-
idence so the jury would believe it—in other words, for its
truth.  So if the out-of-court statements were also testimo-
nial,  their  admission  violated  the  Confrontation  Clause. 
Smith would then have had a right to confront the person
who actually did the lab work, not a surrogate merely read-
ing from her records. 

III 
What  remains  is  whether  the  out-of-court  statements 
Longoni conveyed were testimonial.  As earlier explained,
that question is independent of everything said above: To 
implicate  the  Confrontation  Clause,  a  statement  must  be 
hearsay  (“for  the  truth”)  and  it  must  be  testimonial—and
those two issues are separate from each other.  See supra, 
at 3.  The latter, this Court has stated, focuses on the “pri-
mary purpose” of the statement, and in particular on how it
relates  to  a  future  criminal  proceeding.  See  ibid.  (noting 
varied formulations of the standard).5  A court must there-
fore  identify  the  out-of-court  statement  introduced,  and 
must determine, given all the “relevant circumstances,” the
principal reason it was made.  Bryant, 562 U. S., at 369. 

But that issue is not now fit for our resolution.  The ques-
tion presented in Smith’s petition for certiorari did not ask 
whether  Rast’s  out-of-court  statements  were  testimonial. 
See supra, at 11, n. 3 (quoting Pet. for Cert. i).  Instead, it 
took as a given that they were.  See id., at i.  That presen-
tation reflected the Arizona Court of Appeals’ opinion.  As 
described earlier, that court relied on the “not for the truth” 
—————— 

5 Given that focus, the mine-run of materials on which most expert wit-
nesses rely in forming opinions—including books and journals, surveys,
and economic or scientific studies—will raise no serious confrontation is-
sues.  See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13–17 (giving exam-
ples of classic expert-basis evidence).  That is because the preparation of 
those  materials  generally  lacks  any  “evidentiary  purpose.”  Melendez-
Diaz, 557 U. S., at 311.