{
  "id": "R41996",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R41996",
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  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
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    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 390493,
      "date": "2011-09-13",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-06T21:59:26.978379",
      "title": "The Confrontation Clause After Michigan v. Bryant and Bullcoming v. New Mexico",
      "summary": "The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution includes the guarantee that \u201c[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.\u201d \nHistorically, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Confrontation Clause as being more or less compatible with evidentiary rules governing out-of-court statements. In 1979, in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, the Court expressed the view that evidence that fit within a hearsay exception or had analogous \u201cparticularized guarantees of trustworthiness\u201d would also \u201ccomport with the substance\u201d of the Confrontation Clause; hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause were generally designed to protect similar values and stemmed from the same roots. \nHowever, in a landmark 2004 decision, Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, the Court overruled Roberts. The Crawford decision introduced a new standard for Confrontation Clause analysis: testimonial versus nontestimonial statements. The Court concluded that the Framers of the Constitution intended that, where introduction of out-of-court testimonial evidence is at issue, the Sixth Amendment demands, at a minimum, that a witness be both unavailable and that the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Testimonial evidence, though not fully defined by the Court, includes solemn declarations made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact in a context that the declarant would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially. When a court determines that an out-of-court statement is \u201ctestimonial,\u201d it may not be admitted into evidence under any traditional hearsay exceptions if the declarant is unavailable to testify, unless the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine. \nIn the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 2010-2011 term, two cases were handed down which are significant post-Crawford interpretations of the Clause. One case, Michigan v. Bryant, 131 S. Ct. 1143 (2011), held that admitting into evidence a dying man\u2019s statements to police officers about his assailant did not violate the Confrontation Clause\u2014not through the \u201cdying declaration\u201d exception to hearsay, but because they were made to assist law enforcement officers in an \u201congoing emergency\u201d and were therefore \u201cnontestimonial.\u201d The other, Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011), addressed the prosecution\u2019s use of forensic laboratory reports. It concluded that the Confrontation Clause requires the laboratory analyst who performed the test to appear at trial and confront the defendant in person. \nThis report examines these decisions in the context of the Court\u2019s relatively new Confrontation Clause jurisprudence. It considers their implications for admissibility of evidence in criminal prosecutions.",
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