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Full-Text Articles in Law

Confronting Memory Loss, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman Feb 2020

Confronting Memory Loss, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment grants “the accused” in “all criminal prosecutions” a right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” A particular problem occurs when there is a gap in time between the testimony that is offered, and the cross-examination of it, as where, pursuant to a hearsay exception or exemption, evidence of a current witness’s prior statement is offered and for some intervening reason her current memory is impaired. Does this fatally affect the opportunity to “confront” the witness? The Supreme Court has, to date, left unclear the extent to which a memory-impaired witness can …


The Future Of The Confrontation Clause: Semiautonomous And Autonomous Machine Witnesses, Brian Sites Jan 2020

The Future Of The Confrontation Clause: Semiautonomous And Autonomous Machine Witnesses, Brian Sites

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

How should the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment be interpreted as to machine witnesses? Courts across the country have resisted efforts to cross-examine the human agents who assist machines that generate data used in criminal trials. Such challenges under the Confrontation Clause have been rejected directly and in great number, and the rules of evidence are largely being read to not require the testimony of those who have the best information about the machine's use for the case at hand. This problem arises in an era of machine exceptionalism and widespread use. From increasingly sophisticated forensic lab tools to …


Anderson V. State, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 56 (Nov. 27, 2019), Tayler Bingham Jan 2020

Anderson V. State, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 56 (Nov. 27, 2019), Tayler Bingham

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) when the government relies on the forfeiture exception of the Confrontation Clause to introduce a witness’s out-of-court statements, the burden of proof the litigant must meet is that of preponderance of the evidence; and (2) that a trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying a motion to substitute counsel and thereby violate the Sixth Amendment right to counsel when the trial court holds a Young hearing for each motion and enough evidence indicates there is not a complete breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.