Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Capital Defense Weekly

Criminal Law

: Capital Defense Weekly

The SCOTUS’s other major crimlaw decision

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

For the average “vanilla” defendant in the criminal process Giles v. California is THE opinion of 6/25/2008. From TChris: The other Supreme Court decision of interest today to criminal law junkies is Giles v. California (pdf). The issue is whether a defendant forfeits his right under the Confrontation Clause “to confront a witness against him when a judge determines that a wrongful act by the defendant made the witness unavailable to testify at trial.” Hearsay statements made to a police officer that incriminate a defendant typically cannot be used at the defendant’s trial unless the person making the statements is available to be cross-examined. A murder victim is obviously unavailable, and the issue was whether an exception to the confrontation rule exists when the defendant has caused the unavailability of the witness...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on June 25, 2008 (boomark / email).