LawyersUSA

A murder defendant does not forfeit his right to exclude prior statements by the murder victim unless the defendant killed the victim for the purpose of preventing her testimony at trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

The case arises from the murder trial of a defendant charged with fatally shooting his girlfriend. The defendant admitted to shooting the woman, but claimed it was in self-defense.

During his trial, the state offered – over the defendant's objection – a statement the woman had made to police alleging that the defendant punched, choked and threatened her with a knife. The statement was admitted and the defendant was convicted.

He appealed, arguing that the Confrontation Clause should have barred admission of the statement unless the prosecution showed he killed the victim for the purpose of making her unavailable at trial.

While the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court handed down its 2004 decision in Crawford v. California, 541 U.S. 36, holding that out-of-court statements that are "testimonial" in nature cannot be admitted at trial where the witness is unavailable for cross-examination.

The state countered, arguing that Crawford did not apply because the defendant forfeited his Confrontation Clause protections by killing the witness. The state appellate court affirmed the conviction.

But the Supreme Court reversed.

In a four-justice plurality opinion authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court looked to case law and treatises to define the scope of the forfeiture rule, and found that it was intended to address the conduct of the defendant in keeping a witness from giving adverse testimony in court.

"The manner in which the rule was applied makes plain that unconfronted testimony would not be admitted without a showing that the defendant intended to prevent a witness from testifying," Scalia wrote. "In cases where the evidence suggested that the defendant had caused a person to be absent, but had not done so to prevent the person from testifying – as in the typical murder case involving accusatorial statements by the victim – the testimony was excluded unless it was confronted or fell within the dying-declaration exception. Prosecutors [historically] do not appear to have even argued that the judge could admit the unconfronted statements because the defendant committed the murder for which he was on trial."

Justices David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurred in the judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent joined by Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy.

U.S. Supreme Court. Giles v. California, No. 07-6053. June 25, 2008. Lawyers USA No. 99310217. Click here for the full text of this opinion.