The Oyez Project: Criminal Procedure Issues - Confrontation

Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Assocs.

No details yet.

Bank Of Nova Scotia v. United States

No details yet.

Barber v. Page

No details yet.

Becker v. Montgomery

Dale G. Becker, an Ohio prisoner, instituted a pro se civil rights action to contest the conditions of his confinement. Ultimately, the District Court dismissed Becker's complaint. In appealing, Becker, still pro se, filed his notice of appeal using a government-printed form, on which he filled in all of the required information. On the line labeled "Counsel for Appellant" Becker typed, but did not sign, his name. The form contained no indication of a signature requirement. The District Court docketed the notice, sent a copy to the Court of Appeals, and granted Becker leave to proceed in forma pauperis on appeal. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals, after notifying Becker that the court would not hold him to the same standards it required of attorneys in stating his case, dismissed the appeal on its own motion. The court held that the notice of appeal was fatally defective because it was not signed.

Brookhart v. Janis

No details yet.

Bruton v. United States

No details yet.

Bushnell v. Ellis

No details yet.

Cahill v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.

No details yet.

California v. Green

No details yet.

California v. Superior Court Of California

No details yet.

Carchman v. Nash

No details yet.

Chambers v. Mississippi

No details yet.

Coy v. Iowa

No details yet.

Crawford v. Washington

Michael Crawford stabbed a man he claimed tried to rape his wife. During Crawford's trial, prosecutors played for the jury his wife's tape-recorded statement to the police describing the stabbing. The statement contradicted Crawford's argument that he stabbed the man in defense of his wife. Because it was pre-recorded, Crawford could not cross-examine the statement. The jury convicted Crawford for assault.

Crawford claimed the playing of his wife's statement, with no chance for cross-examination, violated the Sixth Amendment guarantee that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him." The state supreme court upheld the conviction, relying on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Ohio v. Roberts (1980). That decision allowed the admission of out-of-court testimony against a defendant if that testimony was reliable.

Cruz v. New York

No details yet.

Cuyler v. Adams

No details yet.

Davis v. Alaska

No details yet.

Davis v. Washington

Davis was arrested after Michelle McCottry called 911 and told the operator that he had beaten her with his fists and then left. At trial, McCottry did not testify, but the 911 call was offered as evidence of the connection between Davis and McCottry's injuries. Davis objected, arguing that presenting the recording without giving him the opportunity to cross-examine McCottry violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Crawford v. Washington. The Washington Supreme Court disagreed, finding that the call was not "testimonial" and was therefore different from the statements at issue in Crawford.

Degen v. United States

Brian Degen was indicted in 1989 for distributing marijuana, laundering money, and related crimes. On the same day the district court unsealed the indictment, it also unsealed a civil forfeiture complaint for properties allegedly worth $5.5 million and purchased with proceeds of Degen's drug sales or used to facilitate the sales. Degen is a citizen of both the U.S. and Switzerland, and in 1988 he and his family moved to Switzerland. He has not returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges and by treaty the Swiss are not obliged to extradite their nationals to the U.S. While residing in Switzerland, Degen filed an answer in the civil case, claiming that the forfeiture was barred by the statute of limitations and was an unlawful retroactive application of forfeiture laws. The district court did not consider his arguments. Instead, it entered summary judgment against him, holding that he was not entitled to be heard in the civil action because he remained outside the country, unamenable to criminal prosecution. On appeal, the government argued that the district court's inherent powers authorized it to strike Degen's claims under the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine."

Delaware v. Van Arsdall

No details yet.

Demarest v. Manspeaker

No details yet.

Douglas v. Alabama

No details yet.

Dutton v. Evans

No details yet.

Gomez v. United States

No details yet.

Gray v. Maryland

In 1993, the State of Maryland tried Anthony Bell and Kevin Gray jointly for the murder of Stacy Williams. The State entered Bell's confession into evidence at trial. According to the trial judge's order, the police detective who read the confession said the word "deleted" or "deletion" whenever Gray's name appeared. Subsequently, the prosecutor asked the detective if Bell's confession led to Gray's arrest. The detective answered that it did. Ultimately, Gray testified and Bell did not. When instructing the jury, the trial judge specified that the confession was evidence only against Bell. The jury convicted both Bell and Gray. Setting aside Gray's conviction, Maryland's intermediate appellate court applied Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, in which the Court held that, despite a limiting instruction that the jury should consider the confession as evidence only against the confessing codefendant, the introduction of such a confession at a joint trial violates the nonconfessing defendant's Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine witnesses. Maryland's highest court reinstated the conviction.

Greene v. United States

No details yet.

Haines v. Kerner

No details yet.

Hammon v. Indiana

Hershel Hammon was charged with domestic abuse after police responded to a call from his house. When they arrived, Hammon's wife told police that her husband had beaten her. While Mrs. Hammon did not testify at Mr. Hammon's trial, the police officer did testify about what she had told him. Mr. Hammon's attorney objected to the admission of the testimony without cross-examination, but the judge allowed it under the "excited utterance" exception to the general rule against hearsay testimony (second-hand reports of what someone said or did). The police officer was not trying to preserve evidence but merely to assess the incident, so Mrs. Hammon's statements to him were not the sort of testimony prohibited under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Crawford v. Washington.

Hampton v. United States

No details yet.

Harrington v. California

No details yet.

Honda v. Clark

No details yet.

Houston v. Lack

No details yet.

Idaho v. Wright

No details yet.

Illinois v. Allen

No details yet.

Jacobson v. United States

No details yet.

Kentucky v. Stincer

No details yet.

Klehr Et Ux. v. A. O. Smith Corp.

Marvin Klehr purchased inadequate cattle feed containers from A. O. Smith Harvestore Products, Inc. (Harvestore) in 1974. Over a long period of time, the containers damaged Klehr's cattle feed. In 1993, Klehr filed a civil claim against Harvestore under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO). The District Court dismissed Klehr's suit, ruling that the four-year time limit for bringing a civil RICO suit had expired. Klehr claimed that he was not at fault for failing to discover the injury within four years, because Harvestore purposely designed the containers to conceal their inadequacy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the lower court. The Eighth Circuit held that Klehr should have discovered the pattern of racketeering activity much earlier. Since the statute of limitations began from the time Klehr could reasonably be expected to have discovered the pattern, Klehr was out of time. The Eighth Circuit's "pattern of activity" rule contradicted the Third Circuit's "last predicate act" rule, which allows a plaintiff to recover damages accumulated since the first injury as long as the last RICO violation ("last predicate act") happened within four years of the lawsuit.

Lee Kum Hoy v. Murff

No details yet.

Lee v. Illinois

No details yet.

Lilly v. Virginia

Benjamin Lee Lilly, his brother Mark Lilly, and Gary Barker were arrested after stealing liquor and guns and abducting Alex DeFilippis, who was later shot and killed. Under police questioning, Mark admitted stealing liquor, but claimed that Benjamin and Barker stole the guns and that Benjamin shot DeFilippis. When Virginia called Mark as a witness at Benjamin's subsequent criminal trial, Mark invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The trial court then admitted his statements to the police as declarations of an unavailable witness against penal interest. The court overruled Benjamin's objections that the statements were not against Mark's penal interest because they shifted responsibility for the crimes to Barker and Benjamin, and that their admission would violate the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. Subsequently, Benjamin was convicted of the DeFilippis murder and other crimes. In affirming, the Virginia Supreme Court found that the Confrontation Clause was satisfied because Mark's statements fell within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule. The court also held that the statements were reliable because Mark knew that he was implicating himself as a participant in numerous crimes and because the statements were independently corroborated by other evidence at trial.

Lurk v. United States

No details yet.

Mancusi v. Stubbs

No details yet.

Maryland v. Craig

Sandra Ann Craig, the operator of a kindergarten and pre-school facility, was accused of sexually abusing a six-year-old child. Over Craig's objections, a trial court allowed the alleged child victim to testify via one-way closed circuit television. The child testified outside the courtroom while Mrs. Craig, through electronic communication with her lawyer, could make objections. The judge and jury also viewed the testimony in the courtroom. This was done in order to avoid the possibility of serious emotional distress for the child witness. The trial court convicted Craig, but the Maryland high court reversed.

Masciale v. United States

No details yet.

Mathews v. United States

No details yet.

Mesarosh v. United States

No details yet.

Michigan v. Lucas

No details yet.

Moody v. Flowers

No details yet.

Nelson v. O'neil

No details yet.

New Mexico ex rel. Ortiz v. Reed

The Extradition Act implements the Constitution's extradition clause and provides for the extradition from one state of a fugitive from justice when a demand for the fugitive's extradition is made by another state. Manuel Ortiz, a parolee from the Ohio correctional system, fled to New Mexico after Ohio prison officials told him that they planned to revoke his parole status. The governor of New Mexico issued a warrant directing Ortiz's return upon Ohio's demand. Ortiz then sought habeas corpus relief in New Mexico. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of New Mexico affirmed a grant of habeas corpus relief. The court expressed the view that Ortiz was a refugee from injustice and that the New Mexico constitution, which guarantees the right of seeking and obtaining safety, prevailed over the state's duty under the extradition clause.

New Mexico v. Earnest

No details yet.

New York v. Hill

The Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD) is a congressionally sanctioned interstate compact to establish procedures for resolution of one state's outstanding charges against a prisoner of another state. Under the Compact Clause, the IAD is a federal law subject to federal construction. In order to resolve outstanding murder and robbery charges against Michael Hill, an Ohio prisoner, the State of New York lodged a detainer against him under the IAD. Hill filed a request for disposition of the detainer, pursuant to IAD Article III, and was returned to New York. Article III provides that, upon such a request, that the prisoner be brought to trial within 180 days. Thereafter, Hill's counsel agreed to a trial date outside the 180-day period. Subsequently, Hill moved to dismiss his indictment, arguing that the IAD's time limit had expired. The trial court denied Hill's motion, concluding that his defense counsel's explicit agreement to the trial date constituted a waiver or abandonment of Hill's IAD rights. After his conviction and subsequent appeal, the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's refusal to dismiss. In reversing, the state Court of Appeals ordered that Hill's indictment be dismissed because his counsel's agreement to a later trial date, it held, did not waive his IAD speedy trial rights.

North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) authorizes a civil enforcement action by aggrieved employees or their union against a covered employer who fails to give 60 days notice of a plant closing or mass layoff, but provides no limitations period for such an action. In 94-835, the United Steelworkers of America filed a WARN claim, charging Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc. with laying off 85 employees without giving the required 60-day notice. In rejecting Crown Cork's contention that the statute of limitations had run, the District Court held that the source of the limitations period for WARN suits is state law and that the union's suit was timely under any of the arguably applicable Pennsylvania statutes. In 94-834, another District Court granted summary judgment for North Star Steel Company, holding the nonunion employees' suit barred under a limitations period borrowed from the National Labor Relations Act, which the court believed was more analogous to WARN than any state law. The Court of Appeals consolidated the cases and held that a WARN limitations period should be borrowed from state, not federal, law.

Ohio v. Roberts

No details yet.

Old Chief v. United States

Johnny Lynn Old Chief was involved in a disturbance involving gunfire. Subsequently, Old Chief was charged with violating federal law, 18 U. S. C. Section(s) 922(g)(1), which prohibits possession of a firearm by anyone with a prior felony conviction. The earlier crime that was charged in the indictment against Old Chief was assault causing serious bodily injury. Old Chief moved for an order requiring the Government to refrain from revealing the name and nature of his prior assault conviction, which, he argued, would unfairly tax the jury's capacity to hold the Government to its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in violation of Federal Rules of Evidence, on current charges of assault, possession, and violence with a firearm. Old Chief offered to stipulate, or concede, to the fact of the prior conviction without releasing its name or nature. The Government refused to join the stipulation. The Government argued it had the right to present its own evidence of the prior conviction. The District Court ruled in favor of the Government. In affirming the conviction, the Court of Appeals found that the Government was entitled to introduce probative evidence to prove the prior offense regardless of the stipulation offer.

Ortega-Rodriguez v. United States

No details yet.

Parker v. Randolph

No details yet.

Peretz v. United States

No details yet.

Pointer v. Texas

No details yet.

Puerto Rico v. Branstad

Ronald Calder was a native of Iowa working in Puerto Rico, He was charged with first degree murder and attempted murder. After posting bail, he fled to his home state. Puerto Rico submitted a petition to Branstad, Iowa's governor at the time, to extradite Calder for court proceedings. Branstad refused.

Ray v. United States

No details yet.

Reno, Attorney General v. Koray

No details yet.

Richardson v. Marsh

No details yet.

Rock v. Arkansas

No details yet.

Rogers v. United States

No details yet.

Saldana v. United States

No details yet.

Sampson v. Murray

No details yet.

Schneble v. Florida

No details yet.

Sherman v. United States

No details yet.

Smith v. Illinois

No details yet.

Specht v. Patterson

No details yet.

Stirone v. United States

No details yet.

Tacon v. Arizona

No details yet.

Taylor v. Illinois

No details yet.

Tennessee v. Street

No details yet.

Thomas v. Arn

No details yet.

Thompson v. Coastal Oil Co.

No details yet.

Thompson v. I. N. S.

No details yet.

United States v. Alvarez-Machain

No details yet.

United States v. Alvarez-Sanchez

Three days after his arrest by local police on state narcotics charges, Pedro Alvarez-Sanchez confessed to the Secret Service that federal reserve notes found in his home were counterfeit. When he was subsequently charged with the federal offense of possession of counterfeit currency, Alvarez defended himself by claiming that the delay between his arrest on state charges and his presentment on the federal charge rendered his confession inadmissible. Alvarez cited 18 U.S.C. Section 3501(c), which pronounced separate charge-based confessions inadmissible if obtained after the first six hours of detention. On appeal from a reversal of a district court's decision to uphold the confession, the Supreme Court granted the United States certiorari.

United States v. Dunnigan

No details yet.

United States v. France

No details yet.

United States v. Inadi

No details yet.

United States v. Massei

No details yet.

United States v. Owens

No details yet.

United States v. Powell

No details yet.

United States v. Recio

In 1997, police stopped a truck in Nevada and seized the illegal drugs that it was carrying. With the help of the truck drivers, the police set up a sting. Francisco Jimenez Recio and Adrian Lopez-Meza came for the truck and were subsequently arrested. A jury convicted Jimenez Recio and Lopez-Meza of conspiracy, but the trial judge ordered a new trial under Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals precedent that held a conspiracy terminates when "'there is affirmative evidence of...defeat of the object of the conspiracy.'" In other words, the federal government could not prosecute the drug conspiracy defendants unless they had joined the conspiracy before the government seized the drugs. The new jury convicted the two men once again. In reversing, the Ninth Circuit held that the evidence presented at the second trial was insufficient to show that Jimenez Recio and Lopez-Meza had joined the conspiracy before the drug seizure.

United States v. Russell

At the conclusion of an undercover drug investigation, Richard Russell was arrested by Washington police and eventually convicted in a district court for drug manufacturing crimes. Russell challenged his conviction as the result of unconstitutional entrapment practices, since an undercover agent supplied him with an essential ingredient of his drug manufacturing operation. On appeal from an adverse Court of Appeals decision, the Supreme Court granted the government certiorari.

United States v. Salerno

No details yet.

United States v. Scheffer

While defending himself before a military court martial on, among other things, substance abuse charges, airman Edward G. Scheffer sought to introduce his polygraph examination results. The results indicated there was "no deception" in Scheffer's denial that he used drugs while enlisted. Relying on Military Rule of Evidence 707 ("Rule 707"), prohibiting the use of polygraph results in court-martial proceedings, the military judge refused Scheffer's request to admit his results into evidence. On successive appeals, following his conviction on all charges, the Air Force Court of Appeals affirmed but the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces reversed, finding the evidentiary exclusion to be unconstitutional. The United States appealed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

United States v. Shotwell Mfg. Co.

No details yet.

United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal

No details yet.

United States v. Williams

No details yet.

United States v. Wilson

No details yet.

Washington v. Texas

No details yet.

White v. Illinois

No details yet.