Opinion ID: 2639002
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Crawford v. Washington

Text: Between 1980 and 2004, courts nationwide followed the lead of Roberts. As noted, we did so as well, applying Roberts in Bockting. Over time, it became apparent to members of the Court and commentators that the admission of testimonial hearsay statements under Roberts substituted judicial determinations of reliability for the actual confrontation contemplated by the drafters of the Confrontation Clause. Interestingly, as we observed in Bockting, under Wright and Roberts the Confrontation Clause does not invariably require the right to confront. [16] Thus, arguably, an improper conflation of the Confrontation Clause and ordinary hearsay doctrine had evolved. [17] Finally, in 2004, concluding that the use of reliability determinations under Roberts served to undermine an accused's right to confront witnesses under the Sixth Amendment, and agreeing that this practice subverted the original intent of its drafters, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Crawford v. Washington and overruled Roberts as applied to testimonial statements. [18] In summary, the Court held that if a witness is unavailable to testify at trial and the out-of-court statements sought to be admitted are testimonial, the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause requires actual confrontation, i.e., cross-examination. [19] The Court stated: Where nontestimonial hearsay is at issue, it is wholly consistent with the Framers' design to afford the States flexibility in their development of hearsay law  as does Roberts, and as would an approach that exempted such statements from Confrontation Clause scrutiny altogether. Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination.... ... [Thus, w]here testimonial statements are at issue, the only indicium of reliability sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation. [20] The Court stressed that admissibility of testimonial evidence should not be subject to what it characterized as amorphous and highly subjective judicial determinations of reliability. [21] In this, the Court further observed: Admitting statements deemed reliable by a judge is fundamentally at odds with the right of confrontation. To be sure, the Clause's ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that the evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination.... The Roberts test allows a jury to hear evidence, untested by the adversary process, based on a mere judicial determination of reliability. It thus replaces the constitutionally prescribed method of assessing reliability with a wholly foreign one.... .... Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes. [22] A 1998 article by Professor Richard Friedman provides an illustration as to why the Court ultimately reversed course in Crawford: If, apart from reliability considerations, a given statement would fit within the Confrontation Clause, I think it is most unsatisfactory to say to the accused, in effect: Yes, we understand that you have not had an opportunity to cross-examine this person who has made a testimonial statement against you. Do not trouble yourself. The law in its wisdom deems the statement to be so reliable that cross-examination would have done you little good. [23] To summarize, Crawford clearly rejects the notion that reliability determinations may serve as a substitute for cross-examination of testimonial hearsay. With regard to such statements, Crawford attempts to preserve the distinction between hearsay evidentiary principles and the right of confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. [24] While the protections afforded by the hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause overlap and generally protect similar values, their protections are not, as demonstrated in Crawford, exactly congruent. [25]