Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Underdog

Criminal Law

: Underdog

Supreme Court tells judges to follow its rulings.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

    Bill of Rights (From public domain.) Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). For testimonial evidence, Crawford scrapped the rule of Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980), that the Sixth Amendment right to confront one's accusers does not preclude unavailable witnesses' hearsay so long as said hearsay bears adequate indicia of reliability. Crawford applies to testimonial evidence, and has generated substantial litigation over determining what evidence does and does not qualify as testimonial.  The twenty-four-year period between 1980's abysmal Ohio v. Roberts and 2004's wonderful Crawford v. Washington saw repeated erosion of Fourth Amendment rights that had been better protected under the Warren Court, before Richard Nixon nominated Warren Burger as chief justice and added Justice William Rehnquist to the court, followed by Reagan's adding Justice Scalia, Bush I's adding Justice Thomas, and Bush II's adding Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on June 26, 2009 (boomark / email).