Your Right to Confront Witnesses in Court
When facing criminal charges, you have the right to confront the witnesses testifying against you. The Sixth Amendment reads: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him”. In practice, this means that tape recordings and written statements are no substitute for questioning witnesses in court.
The pivotal case of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), illustrates why the Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment is so important for criminal defendants. In the case, a criminal defendant’s wife gave a statement to the police that was tape-recorded. The wife refused to testify against her husband in court. The prosecution then offered the tape as evidence against the husband and the court allowed it, despite the husband’s objections. The court also found that the taped testimony was reliable because it partially matched what the husband had said to the police.
The husband appealed his resulting conviction and the case made its way to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court reversed the husband’s conviction. The opinion explains that the prosecution’s use of the wife’s statement violated the Confrontation Clause, reasoning that the only “indicium of reliability” for testimonial evidence that upholds a defendant’s constitutional rights is confrontation, including the opportunity to cross-examine in court. Id. This means that however reliable a trial court might find a taped statement to be, using the taped statement is no substitute for having the witness questioned in live court.
Subsequent cases have clarified the Crawford rule. In Davis v. Washington, the Supreme Court determined that statements made during 911 calls were not “testimonial” for purposes of the Confrontation Clause. Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006). The court reasoned that statements “made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency” did not give rise to the need for confrontation in court, while statements made while “there is no such ongoing emergency, and the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution” are testimonial. Id.
Numerous other cases interpret and expand on the holding in Crawford v. Washington. The case shows that defendants must always be wary of the prosecution’s attempts to introduce testimonial evidence without an opportunity to cross-examine the witness.
Have you been charged with a DUI in Oklahoma and don’t know where to turn? Seek out the attorney who knows the system. Clint Patterson, Esq., of Patterson Law Firm, a former Tulsa prosecutor now using his trial experience and expert-level knowledge of DUI science to defend drivers, has the experience and the insight to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your case. To schedule a case evaluation, visit Patterson Law Firm online or call Clint’s office at (918) 550-9175.