Smith v. Arizona
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 21, 2024 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 21, 2024
- Term
- October Term 2023
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kagan
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 602 U. S. Part 1 Pages 779–820 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT June 21, 2024 Page Proof Pending Publication REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. OCTOBER TERM, 2023 779 Syllabus SMITH v. ARIZONA certiorari to the court of appeals of arizona, division one No. 22–899. Argued January 10, 2024—Decided June 21, 2024 The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause guarantees a criminal de- fendant the right to confront the witnesses against him. In operation, the Clause protects a defendant's right of cross-examination by limiting the prosecution's ability to introduce statements made by people not in the courtroom. The Clause thus bars the admission at trial of an absent witness's statements unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a prior chance to subject her to cross-examination. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36, 53–54. This prohibition “applies only to testi- monial hearsay,” Davis v. Washington, 547 U. S. 813, 823, and in that two-word phrase are two limits. First, in speaking about “witnesses”— or “those who bear testimony”—the Clause confnes…
Excerpt of a 91,175-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.