The Sixth Amendment and Hearsay: An Introduction for Students and Practitioners

Abstract

In Crawford v. Washington, the Supreme Court revolutionized the relationship between hearsay and the Sixth Amendment. During the seven years since that landmark decision, the Court has issued a series of increasingly fractious opinions interpreting Crawford. Students and practitioners struggle to reconcile this line of cases and to apply the Court’s reasoning to new disputes. This chapter, drawn from the forthcoming second edition of our book, Learning Evidence: From the Federal Rules to the Courtroom (West Publishing 2d ed. 2011), introduces students and lawyers to the Court’s Crawford line of cases. The chapter also illustrates a method we have developed for teaching legal principles without lengthy excerpts from appellate opinions. In upper level courses, students must master a large body of doctrine while advancing their analytic, writing, and other skills. Rather than teach every doctrinal principle through a case, materials like these give students a foundation that we build upon in class with problems, simulations, selected case analysis, and other exercises.

Keywords: Hearsay, Testimonial, Sixth Amendment, Confrontation clause, Criminal Trials

JEL Classification: K00, K14, K19, K39, K41