Obi-Wan Kenobi on the lastest Confrontation Clause Cert Grant
by: Ryan • July 14, 2011 • no comments
I have previously referred to Professor Richard Friedman as the Obi-Wan Kenobi to Jeff Fisher's Luke Skywalker. He is also the author of The Confrontation Blog. He has a new blog post on Williams v. Illinois, the latest confrontation clause cert grant from SCOTUS.
His post is exceptionally valuable, touching on a number of aspects to the Confrontation Clause - such as the "not for the truth" exception - that are not obvious. But like all great professors, he writes with exceptional clarity on a difficult topic.
The issue presented in Williams, according to SCOTUSblog is:
Whether a state rule of evidence allowing an expert witness to testify about the results of DNA testing performed by non-testifying analysts violates the Confrontation Clause, when the defendant has no opportunity to confront the actual analysts.
That's the question in a nutshell, but as Hamlet observed, and Richard Friedman demonstrates, you can be trapped in a nutshell and still count yourself a king of infinite space. Scene ii.
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