## 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

1. 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.
2. 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.


Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004)