Murder conviction reversed
“At its core, the Sixth Amendment acts as a restraint on the government’s power to unfairly punish citizens in criminal cases, putting safeguards in place to prevent the accused from being indiscriminately stripped of their life and liberty.”
Rutherford, along with several other civil rights organizations, had filed a friend of the court brief in Hemphill v. New York, explaining that judge-created exceptions to the Sixth Amendment aren’t allowed.
The 8-1 high court decision said the “Confrontation Clause requires that the reliability and veracity of the evidence against a criminal defendant be tested by cross-examination, not determined by a trial court.”
The Sixth Amendment provides that when people are accused of a crime, they are told what they’re charged with and be given a fair, speedy and public trial.