Michigan, Petitioner v. Richard Perry Bryant (562 U.S. 344)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 28, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 562 U.S. 344 · 131 S. Ct. 1143
- Decided
- February 28, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the Court. At respondent Richard Bryant’s trial, the court admitted statements that the victim, Anthony Covington, made to police officers who discovered him mortally wounded in a gas station parking lot. A jury convicted Bryant of, inter alia, second-degree murder. 483 Mich. 132, 137, 768 N. W. 2d 65, 67-68 (2009). On appeal, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, as explained in our decisions in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36 (2004), and Davis v. Washington, 547 U. S. 813 (2006), rendered Covington’s statements inadmissible testimonial hearsay, and the court reversed Bryant’s conviction. 483 Mich., at 157, 768 N. W. 2d, at 79. We granted the State’s petition for a writ of certiorari to consider whether the Confrontation Clause barred the admission at trial of Covington’s statements to the police. We hold that the circumstances of the interaction between Covington and the police objectively indicate that the “primary purpose of the interrogation” was “to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency.” Davis, 547 U. S., at 822. Therefore, Covington’s identification and description of the shooter and the location of the shooting were not testimonial statements, and their admission at Bryant’s trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause. We vacate the judgment of the Supreme…
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