6Th Amendment reaffirmed

US Supreme Court | Mar 8,2004 | US Supreme Court

[djf]

The Supreme Court, in a decision Monday, Crawford V. Washington, has re-affirmed the accused rights in a criminal trial to be confronted by his accuser. The court had, in recent years, after the Ohio V. Roberts decision, held that in certain circumstances, hearsay evidence could be deemed credible enough to be noticed by the court and used against the defendent. In a blistering rebuttal to this philosophy by Scalia the court held Monday that this does not conform to the original intent of the founders, and the right to be confronted in court by ALL the witnesses against a defendent is inviolable.

The decision is available only in a pdf slip opinion now, case 02-9410, Argued Nov 10, 2003, decided Mar 8, 2004.

[Forrestfire]

does that mean that a traffic camera must come into court to testify against you?

[section9]

No, but you have to admit, Scalia kicks serious ass.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[glock rocks]

view in html here.

[djf]

Thanks. The only copy I found yet was PDF...

Scalia calls it "unpardonable vice of the Roberts decision"... I luv that guy!

[Lancey Howard]

Interesting. They found an amendment they could "reafffirm".

[eddie willers]

In a blistering rebuttal to this philosophy by Scalia

You da man!

[Qwinn]

Awesome. Now if we could only reaffirm the 1st, 2nd, and 10th I'd be a much happier person.

Qwinn

[Moonman62]

Oh no, Scalia mentioned the Founders. That should get the Left all in a knot, LOL.

[Cboldt]

... you have to admit, Scalia kicks serious ass.

So does Rehnquist, and coming along smartly, Thomas. The country will be served well to obtain similar-minded folks on the Supreme Court bench.

[zeugma]

There must be some mistake. The supreme Court can't possibly put together a majority to affirm a fundamental right the founders would recognise. I'll have to read this later. I'm suprised LII hasn't delivered this to my inbox yet.

[Cboldt]

The 10th is a lost cause, unfortunately. It is taken as a mere statement of fact, and not as a limitation on government. The statement of fact is that "In a three-section rights-pie made of states-rights, federal-rights and personal-rights, each part of the pie can be assigned to one of the three sections."

[glock rocks]

it's up on LII.. link on #4

[B4Ranch]

ping

[PAR35]

"Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes."

[PAR35]

Interesting. They found an amendment they could "reafffirm".

Not only that, they did it without a single dissent. All 9 justices agreed that the Supreme Court of the state of Washington got it wrong.

[StriperSniper]

.

[alexandria]

The Clause’s primary object is testimonial hearsay, and interrogations by law enforcement officers fall squarely within that class.
Second, the Framers would not have allowed admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.

So does this also include those various "informants" of law enforcement? Since interrogations by LE fall into the class of testimonial hearsay I can't imagine that a person who essentially tells LE what they want to hear to get a lesser charge, or be let go entirely, would be above hearsay.

[Libertina]

I hate those cameras. The taxi drivers got it right in Taiwan, where they beat the ugly things into "dis-service" with baseball bats! LOL Also, the government there would put in fake ones, but the people all knew which were which ;)

[ontos-on]

Not only that, the traffic camera has to be subject to a cross-examination.