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Page Number: 15.0

12 

SMITH v. ARIZONA 

Opinion of the Court 

statements came in to establish the truth of what she said, 
then  the  Clause’s  alarms  begin  to  ring;  but  if  her  state-
ments came in for another purpose, then those alarms fall
quiet.

Where  the  parties  disagree,  of  course,  is  in  answering 
that  purpose  question.   Smith  argues  that  the  “for  the 
truth”  condition  is  satisfied  here,  just  as  much  as  in 
Melendez-Diaz or Bullcoming.  See Brief for Smith 23–28; 
supra,  at  3–5.    In  his  view,  Rast’s  statements  were  con-
veyed, via Longoni’s testimony, to establish that what she 
said happened in the lab did in fact happen.  Or put more 
specifically, those statements were conveyed to show that
she used certain standard procedures to run certain tests,
which enabled identification of the seized items.  The State 
sees  the  matter  differently.  See  Brief  for  Arizona  19–26. 
Echoing the Arizona Court of Appeals (and the Illinois Su-
preme  Court  in  Williams),  the  State  argues  that  Rast’s
statements came into evidence not for their truth, but in-
stead to “show the basis” of the in-court expert’s independ-
ent opinion.  Brief for Arizona 21; see supra, at 6.  And to 
defend that characterization, Arizona emphasizes that its
Rule of Evidence 703 (again, like Illinois’s) authorizes the 
admission of such statements only for that purpose—i.e., to 
“help[ ] the jury [to] evaluate” the opinion testimony.  Brief 
for  Arizona  20–21;  see  post,  at  8  (ALITO, J., concurring  in
judgment) (arguing the same as to Federal Rule of Evidence 
703).

Evidentiary rules, though, do not control the inquiry into
whether a statement is admitted for its truth.  That inquiry,
as  just  described,  marks  the  scope  of  a  federal  constitu-
tional right.  See supra, at 11.  And federal constitutional 
rights are not typically defined—expanded or contracted—
by  reference  to  non-constitutional  bodies  of  law  like  evi-
dence  rules.4   The  confrontation  right  is  no  different,  as 

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4 One  qualification  is  appropriate.    If  an  evidentiary  rule  reflects  a