## Facts

- During a Bronx street fight, a stray nine-millimeter bullet struck and killed a toddler riding in a nearby minivan.
- Eyewitnesses reported that the shooter wore a blue sweater or sweatshirt.
- Police identified multiple participants, including Nicholas Morris and Ronnell Gilliam.
- Three eyewitnesses picked Morris as the shooter from a police lineup.
- In Morris’s home, police found a single nine-millimeter cartridge and multiple .357-caliber cartridges on a nightstand.
- Police also recovered a blue sweater from Gilliam’s home.
- Gilliam first told police that Morris fired the fatal shot, but later changed his account and said his cousin, Darrell Hemphill, was the shooter.
- Despite Gilliam’s later statement, New York initially indicted Morris for the toddler’s murder.
- The murder charge against Morris was later dismissed as part of a plea agreement in which Morris pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a .357 revolver (a weapon that could not have fired the nine-millimeter fatal shot).
- About five years later, police learned that DNA on the blue sweater matched Hemphill, and the State charged Hemphill with the toddler’s murder.
- At Hemphill’s trial, the defense theory was third-party culpability: Morris was the shooter. A police officer testified about the ammunition found on Morris’s nightstand, including the nine-millimeter cartridge.
- Morris was unavailable to testify at Hemphill’s trial because he was outside the United States.
- The prosecution sought to introduce portions of the transcript of Morris’s plea hearing (plea allocution) to show Morris admitted possessing only a .357 revolver and to suggest that possession of that revolver was Morris’s only wrongdoing.
- Hemphill objected that admitting Morris’s plea allocution violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause because Morris did not testify and Hemphill had no prior chance to cross-examine him.
- The trial court ruled that Hemphill had created a misleading impression about Morris and, under New York’s “door-opening” doctrine, allowed the prosecution to admit the plea-allocution transcript for a limited rebuttal purpose.
- Hemphill was convicted. New York’s appellate courts affirmed, reasoning that the defense had opened the door to the challenged evidence.

## Issues

1. Does the Sixth Amendment permit a court to admit testimonial hearsay from an unavailable witness, without prior cross-examination, on the theory that the defendant “opened the door” by creating a misleading impression at trial?
2. Did Hemphill adequately preserve his Confrontation Clause objection in state court so the Supreme Court could reach the merits?

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and remanded (8–1).
- Justice Sotomayor wrote the Court’s opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
- The Court held that admitting Morris’s plea-allocution transcript over Hemphill’s objection violated the Confrontation Clause.
- The Court rejected New York’s use of its door-opening doctrine to admit unconfronted testimonial statements as a corrective measure for a purportedly misleading defense presentation.
- The Court also rejected New York’s claim that Hemphill failed to present the federal constitutional issue adequately in state court.
- Justice Alito, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, concurred in the judgment.
- Justice Thomas dissented.

## Legal Principles

- The Confrontation Clause generally bars admission of testimonial out-of-court statements offered against an accused unless the declarant is unavailable and the accused had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.
- A state evidentiary rule allowing otherwise inadmissible evidence to correct a misleading impression (“opening the door”) cannot justify admitting testimonial hearsay against a defendant when the Sixth Amendment’s requirements are not met.
- A defendant does not lose Confrontation Clause protection merely because the defense introduces evidence or makes arguments that the trial judge finds incomplete or misleading.
- Forfeiture of confrontation rights is limited to recognized doctrines such as forfeiture by wrongdoing, where the defendant’s own misconduct is responsible for the witness’s absence.
- Plea allocutions are testimonial statements for Confrontation Clause purposes when offered against a defendant at a later trial.

## Conclusion

Hemphill v. New York holds that a defendant’s trial strategy cannot serve as a basis for admitting an unavailable third party’s testimonial plea allocution without prior cross-examination: New York’s door-opening doctrine could not override the Sixth Amendment, so Hemphill’s conviction was reversed and the case remanded.


Hemphill v. New York, 595 U.S. 140, 142 S. Ct. 681 (2022)