Facts
- Michael D. Crawford was prosecuted in Washington state court for assault and attempted murder after he stabbed Kenneth Lee.
- Crawford claimed he acted in defense of his wife, Sylvia Crawford, whom he said Lee had attempted to rape.
- Police separately interrogated Sylvia while Crawford was in custody and recorded Sylvia’s statement.
- Sylvia’s recorded statement raised doubts about Crawford’s self-defense account, and the State sought to play the recording at trial.
- Under Washington’s marital privilege, Sylvia did not testify and was treated as unavailable.
- The trial court admitted the recorded statement as hearsay under the then-prevailing Confrontation Clause approach that permitted admission if reliability was found, including by “interlocking” with other evidence.
- The jury heard the recording despite Crawford’s lack of cross-examination of Sylvia and convicted him of assault.
- The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the admission on the ground that the statement had sufficient reliability.
Issues
- Whether admitting a recorded statement taken during police interrogation from an unavailable witness, without any prior opportunity for cross-examination, violates the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.
- Whether a judicial finding that such hearsay is reliable can substitute for confrontation when the statement is testimonial.
Decision
- The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- The Court held that Sylvia Crawford’s statement to police was testimonial and its admission without cross-examination violated the Confrontation Clause.
- The Court rejected the prior reliability-based framework for testimonial hearsay.
- A concurrence agreed with the judgment but objected to fully discarding the earlier approach.
Legal Principles
- The Confrontation Clause primarily targets testimonial statements used against an accused.
- Testimonial statements include, at minimum, prior testimony in formal proceedings and statements taken by police in interrogations.
- Testimonial statements from a witness who does not appear at trial are admissible only if (1) the witness is unavailable and (2) the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine.
- For testimonial hearsay, reliability determinations by a court do not replace the constitutional requirement of confrontation.
- When a declarant appears and is subject to cross-examination at trial, the Confrontation Clause does not bar use of that declarant’s prior testimonial statements.
Conclusion
The Court held that the Sixth Amendment requires confrontation, not judicial reliability screening, for testimonial hearsay: an unavailable witness’s testimonial statement to police cannot be used unless the defendant previously had a chance to cross-examine the witness.