NCJ Number
84347
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Despite the Supreme Court's efforts in four cases between 1963 and 1970 to clarify the relationship between the constitutional right of confrontation and exceptions to the hearsay rule, the issue remains an unresolved dilemma.
Abstract
The inability to cross-examine is inherent in the definition of hearsay. Exceptions to this rule are justified through some acceptable substitute for the cross-examination requirement and are the means by which vital evidence such as dying declarations and hospital records becomes admissible. The sixth amendment guarantees a defendant's right in a criminal prosecution to be confronted with hostile witnesses. Three Supreme Court cases in which the confrontation issue was raised have held that receipt of hearsay evidence without opportunity for cross-examination constitute a violation of the confrontation clause: Pointer v. Texas, Douglas v. Alabama, and United States v. Bruton. The fourth, California v. Green, declares that the confrontational requirement is satisfied if the opportunity to cross-examine has existed either at the time of the out-of-court statement or at the trial. The dilemma created by these decisions is that if the confrontation clause guarantees cross-examination, as these rulings indicate, then every exception to hearsay is unconstitutional as applied against defendants in criminal cases. The review of these cases is deemed a study in microcosm of the Supreme Court's adjudication process. The lecturer contends that the Supreme Court deliberately set out in Pointer v. Texas to develop the law of confrontation but that the logical implications of the results achieved were unintentional. For additional discussion of the hearsay/confrontation issue, see NCJ 84348.