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The Mold That Shapes Hearsay Law, Richard D. Friedman
The Mold That Shapes Hearsay Law, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In response to an article previously published in the Florida Law Review by Professor Ben Trachtenberg, I argue that the historical thesis of Crawford v. Washington is basically correct: The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment reflects a principle about how witnesses should give testimony, and it does not create any broader constraint on the use of hearsay. I argue that this is an appropriate limit on the Clause, and that in fact for the most part there is no good reason to exclude nontestimonial hearsay if live testimony by the declarant to the same proposition would be admissible. I …
Confrontation And Forensic Laboratory Reports, Round Four, Richard D. Friedman
Confrontation And Forensic Laboratory Reports, Round Four, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
Crawford v. Washington radically transformed the doctrine governing the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution. Before Crawford, a prosecutor could introduce against an accused evidence of a hearsay statement, even one made in contemplation that it would be used in prosecution, so long as the statement fit within a "firmly rooted" hearsay exception or the court otherwise determined that the statement was sufficiently reliable to warrant admissibility. Crawford recognized that the Clause is a procedural guarantee, governing the manner in which prosecution witnesses give their testimony. Therefore, a prosecutor may not introduce a statement that is testimonial …
Who Said The Crawford Revolution Would Be Easy?, Richard D. Friedman
Who Said The Crawford Revolution Would Be Easy?, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
One of the central protections of our system of criminal justice is the right of the accused in all criminal prosecutions "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." It provides assurance that prosecution witnesses will give their testimony in the way demanded for centuries by Anglo-American courts-in the presence of the accused, subject to cross-examination- rather than in any other way. Witnesses may not, for example, testify by speaking privately to governmental agents in a police station or in their living rooms. Since shortly after it was adopted, however, the confrontation right became obscured by the ascendance of a …
Holmes V. South Carolina Upholds Trial By Jury, Samuel R. Gross
Holmes V. South Carolina Upholds Trial By Jury, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
Bobby Lee Holmes was convicted of a brutal rape-murder and sentenced to death. The only evidence that connected him to the crime was forensic: a palm print, and blood and fiber evidence. (Biological samples taken from the victim for two rape kits were compromised and yielded no identifiable evidence.) Holmes claimed that the state's forensic evidence was planted and mishandled, and that the rape and murder were committed by another man, Jimmy McCaw White. At a pretrial hearing three witnesses testified that they saw White near the victim's house at about the time of the crime, and four others testified …
Confrontation After Crawford, Richard D. Friedman
Confrontation After Crawford, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The following edit excerpt, drawn from "The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted and Transformed," 2003-04 Cato Supreme Court Review 439 (2004), by Law School Professor Richard D. Friedman, discusses the impact, effects, and questions generated by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Crawford v. Washington last year that a defendant is entitled to confront and cross-examine any testimonial statement presented against him. In Crawford, the defendant, charged with attacking another man with a knife, contested the trial court's admission of a tape-recorded statement his wife made to police without giving him the opportunity to cross-examine. The tiral court admitted the statement, and …
Face To Face With The Right Of Confrontation, Richard D. Friedman
Face To Face With The Right Of Confrontation, Richard D. Friedman
Other Publications
This article is an edited excerpt from the amicus curiae brief filed in Crawford v. Washington, heard before the United States Supreme Court on November 10, 2003. Prof. Friedman wrote the brief for the Court.
Adjusting To Crawford: High Court Decision Restores Confrontation Clause Protection, Richard D. Friedman
Adjusting To Crawford: High Court Decision Restores Confrontation Clause Protection, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In Crawford v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 1354 (2004), the U.S. Supreme Court radically transformed its doctrine governing the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Craitiord is a very positive development, restoring to its central position one of the basic protections of the common law system of criminal justice. But the decision leaves many open questions, and all lawyers involved in the criminal justice process will have to adjust to the new regime that it creates. This article outlines and summarizes the problems with the law as it stood before Crait/brd. It then explains the theoretical …
The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted And Transformed, Richard D. Friedman
The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted And Transformed, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
For several centuries, prosecution witnesses in criminal cases have given their testimony under oath, face to face with the accused, and subject to cross-examination at trial. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the procedure, providing that ‘‘[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witness against him.’’ In recent decades, however, judicial protection of the right has been lax, because the U.S. Supreme Court has tolerated admission of outof- court statements against the accused, without cross-examination, if the statements are deemed ‘‘reliable’’ or ‘‘trustworthy.’’ …
Face To Face': Rediscovering The Right To Confront Prosecution Witnesses, Richard D. Friedman
Face To Face': Rediscovering The Right To Confront Prosecution Witnesses, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of an accused 'to confront the witnesses against him'. The United States Supreme Court has treated this Confrontation Clause as a broad but rather easily rebuttable rule against using hearsay on behalf of a criminal prosecution; with respect to most hearsay, the exclusionary rule is overcome if the court is persuaded that the statement is sufficiently reliable, and the court can reach that conclusion if the statement fits within a 'firmly rooted' hearsay exception. This article argues that this framework should be abandoned. The clause should not be regarded …
Dial-In Testimony, Richard D. Friedman, Bridget Mary Mccormack
Dial-In Testimony, Richard D. Friedman, Bridget Mary Mccormack
Articles
For several hundred years, one of the great glories of the common law system of criminal justice has been the requirement that prosecution witnesses give their testimony in the presence of the accused" face to face," in the time-honored phrase-under oath, subject to cross-examination, and, unless unfeasible, in open court. In the United States, this principle is enshrined in the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, which provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." But now a new way is developing for witnesses for the prosecution …
The Conundrum Of Children, Confrontation, And Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman
The Conundrum Of Children, Confrontation, And Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The adjudication of child abuse claims poses an excruciatingly difficult conundrum. The crime is a terrible one, but false convictions are abhorrent. Often the evidence does not support a finding of guilt or innocence with sufficient clarity to allow a decision free of gnawing doubt. In many cases, a large part of the problem is that the prosecution's case depends critically on the statement or testimony of a young child. Even with respect to adult witnesses, the law of hearsay and confrontation is very perplexing, as anyone who has studied American evidentiary law and read Supreme Court opinions on the …
Lilly V. Virginia Glimmers Of Hope For The Confrontation Clause?, Richard D. Friedman
Lilly V. Virginia Glimmers Of Hope For The Confrontation Clause?, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In 1662, in The Case of Thomas Tong and Others, which involved charges of treason against several defendants, the judges of the King's Bench conferred on a crucial set of points of procedure. As reported by one of the judges, Sir John Kelyng, the judges agreed unanimously that a pretrial confession made to the authorities was evidence against the Party himself who made the Confession, and indeed, if adequately proved could support a conviction of that party without additional witnesses to the treason itself. But -- again unanimously, and quite definitively -- the judges also agreed that the confession cannot …
Confrontation: The Search For Basic Principles, Richard D. Friedman
Confrontation: The Search For Basic Principles, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the accused in a criminal prosecution the right "to be confronted with the Witnesses against him."' The Confrontation Clause clearly applies to those witnesses who testify against the accused at trial. Moreover, it is clear enough that confrontation ordinarily includes the accused's right to have those witnesses brought "face-toface," in the time-honored phrase, when they testify.2 But confrontation is much more than this "face-to-face" right. It also comprehends the right to have witnesses give their testimony under oath and to subject them to crossexamination. 3 Indeed, the Supreme Court has treated the accused's …
Truth And Its Rivals In The Law Of Hearsay And Confrontation (Symposium: Truth And Its Rivals: Evidence Reform And The Goals Of Evidence Law)." , Richard D. Friedman
Truth And Its Rivals In The Law Of Hearsay And Confrontation (Symposium: Truth And Its Rivals: Evidence Reform And The Goals Of Evidence Law)." , Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In this paper, I will look at the problem of hearsay and confrontation through the lens offered by this symposium's theme of "truth and its rivals." I will ask: To what extent does the law of hearsay and confrontation aspire to achieve the goal of truth in litigation? To what extent does it, or should it, seek to achieve other goals, or to satisfy other constraints on the litigation system? And, given the ends that it seeks to achieve, what should the shape of the law in this area be? My principal conclusions are as follows: In most settings, the …
Confrontation And The Definition Of Chutzpa, Richard D. Friedman
Confrontation And The Definition Of Chutzpa, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
You may know the standard illustration of chutzpa - the man who kills both his parents and then begs the sentencing court to have mercy on an orphan. In this article, I discuss a case of chutzpa that is nearly as outlandish - the criminal defendant who, having rendered his victim unavailable to testify, contends that evidence of the victim's statement should not be admitted against him because to do so would violate his right to confront her. I contend that in a case like this the defendant should be deemed to have forfeited the confrontation right. On the same …
Prior Statements Of A Witness: A Nettlesome Corner Of The Hearsay Thicket, Richard D. Friedman
Prior Statements Of A Witness: A Nettlesome Corner Of The Hearsay Thicket, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In Tome v United States, for the fifth time in eight years, the Supreme Court decided a case presenting the problem of how a child's allegations of sexual abuse should be presented in court. Often the child who charges that an adult abused her is unable to testify at trial, or at least unable to testify effectively under standard procedures. These cases therefore raise intriguing and difficult questions related to the rule against hearsay and to an accused's right under the Sixth Amendment to confront the witnesses against him. One would hardly guess that, however, from the rather arid debate …
Compulsory Process, Right To, Peter K. Westen
Compulsory Process, Right To, Peter K. Westen
Book Chapters
The first state to adopt a constitution following the Declaration of Independence (New Jersey, 1776) guaranteed all criminal defendants the same ‘‘privileges of witnesses’’ as their prosecutors. Fifteen years later, in enumerating the constitutional rights of accused persons, the framers of the federal Bill of Rights bifurcated what New Jersey called the ‘‘privileges of witnesses’’ into two distinct but related rights: the Sixth Amendment right of the accused ‘‘to be confronted with the witnesses against him,’’ and his companion Sixth Amendment right to ‘‘compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.’’ The distinction between witnesses ‘‘against’’ the accused and witnesses …