Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-637_10n2.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

HEMPHILL v. NEW YORK 

Opinion of the Court 

Accordingly, the Court turns to the merits of that claim. 

III 
A 
One of the bedrock constitutional protections afforded to
criminal  defendants  is  the  Confrontation  Clause  of  the 
Sixth Amendment, which states: “In all criminal prosecu-
tions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted 
with the witnesses against him.”3
  In Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56, 66 (1980), this Court had 
held that this confrontation right did not bar the admission
of  statements  of  an  unavailable  witness  so  long  as  those 
statements had “adequate ‘indicia of reliability,’ ” meaning
that they fell “within a firmly rooted hearsay exception” or
otherwise  bore  “particularized  guarantees  of  trustworthi-
ness.”  However, 24 years later, this Court rejected that re-
liability-based approach to the Confrontation Clause.  See 
Crawford, 541 U. S., at 61. 

In charting a different path, the Crawford Court exam-
ined the history of the confrontation right at common law 
and concluded that “the principal evil at which the Confron-
tation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of crimi-
nal procedure, and particularly its use of ex parte examina-
tions  as  evidence  against  the  accused.”    Id.,  at  50.  The 

—————— 
party defense with misleading the jury, opening the door to testimonial 
hearsay”—a rule that “unjustifiably undermines the right to Confronta-
tion”  for  reasons  he  proceeded  to  explain.    App.  388.    Thus,  Hemphill 
expressly raised a Confrontation Clause argument and, contrary to the
dissent’s contention, offered the Court of Appeals “ ‘the first opportunity’ ” 
to construe Reid “ ‘in a way which saves [its] constitutionality.’ ”  Post, at 
9  (quoting Cardinale v. Louisiana, 394 U. S. 437, 439 (1969)).  The dis-
sent  also  accuses  this  Court  of  “redefin[ing]  Reid  to  be what  Hemphill 
said it was not.”  Post, at 10.  Far from it: This Court accepts the Court
of Appeals’ conclusive determination that Reid authorized the admission 
of testimonial hearsay in this case. 

3 The  Clause  binds  the  States  through  the  Fourteenth  Amendment. 

Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 403 (1965).