541 U.S. 36 (2004) (U.S. Supreme Court)
Crawford v. Washington is the modern cornerstone of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause.
Does the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause permit the admission of a non-testifying witness's testimonial statement based solely on judicial findings of reliability, or is such a statement inadmissible unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine?
Under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, testimonial statements of a witness absent from trial are inadmissible unless (1) the witness is unavailable, and (2) the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the witness. The reliability of testimonial hearsay cannot be established by judicial determinations of trustworthiness; instead, reliability is ensured through the adversarial process of cross-examination. The Court identified testimonial statements to include, at minimum, prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, at a former trial, and statements made during police interrogations.
Admission of Sylvia Crawford's tape-recorded statement to police violated the Confrontation Clause because it was testimonial, she was unavailable at trial, and Michael Crawford had no prior opportunity to cross-examine her. The Court rejected the Ohio v. Roberts reliability test for testimonial hearsay and reversed.
Crawford reoriented Confrontation Clause doctrine away from flexible reliability assessments and toward a categorical, historically anchored rule for testimonial evidence. It reshaped how prosecutors present out-of-court statements and how defense counsel litigate hearsay objections. The decision triggered a line of cases refining what counts as 'testimonial' (e.g., Davis v. Washington; Michigan v. Bryant; Ohio v. Clark) and how the Clause applies to forensic reports (Melendez-Diaz; Bullcoming; Williams). For law students, Crawford is essential to understanding the interplay between constitutional rights and evidence law, the limits on using police-gathered statements at trial, and the continuing vitality of exceptions like forfeiture by wrongdoing.