Opinion ID: 2543261
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Do the Confrontation Clause and Crawford v. Washington apply to the selection phase of a bifurcated capital penalty hearing?

Text: Johnson contends that the district court committed reversible error by admitting copies of his inmate disciplinary reports from the Clark County Detention Center during the selection phase of his penalty hearing. Those reports, he asserts, violated the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause and Crawford [9] because they contained testimonial hearsay statements by witnesses who were not shown to be unavailable and whom he had no opportunity to cross-examine. He maintains that he is entitled to a new penalty hearing. We disagree. We held in Summers that the right to confrontation does not apply to evidence admitted in a capital penalty hearing. Our holding in Summers applies to the entirety of a capital penalty hearing, irrespective of whether the hearing is bifurcated into distinct phases as Johnson's hearing was. Even assuming that statements within the reports were testimonial under Crawford, pursuant to our reasoning in Summers, Johnson did not enjoy a Sixth Amendment right to confront their declarants. We conclude that the admission of the reports was not error and reversal is not warranted on this basis.