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State V. Roberts: A Persuasive But Unsupported Position, Robert A. Boyd

Cleveland State Law Review

The Ohio Supreme Court recently held in State v. Roberts that when a witness is unavailable at the trial of a criminal defendant, the state may not introduce the witness' preliminary hearing testimony into evidence unless he had been cross-examined at the preliminary hearing. The court found that the defendant, Roberts, had been denied his right to confront an adverse witness when the trial court admitted the preliminary hearing testimony of a witness who was not present at trial, and held that mere opportunity to cross-examine at a preliminary hearing, unexercised, did not satisfy the demands of the Confrontation Clause …