Crawford v. Washington

Crawford v. Washington
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 10, 2003 Decided March 8, 2004
Full case name	Michael D. Crawford v. Washington
Citations	541 U.S. 36 (more) 124 S. Ct. 1354; 158 L. Ed. 2d 177; 2004 U.S. LEXIS 1838; 72 U.S.L.W. 4229; 63 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. (Callaghan) 1077; 17 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 181
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Thurston County Superior Court, 11-19-99; reversed, 107 Wn. App. 1025 (2001); reversed, conviction reinstated, 54 P.3d 656 (Wash. 2002); cert. granted, 539 U.S. 914 (2003).
Subsequent	None
Holding
The use at trial of out-of-court statements made to police by an unavailable witness violated a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority	Scalia, joined by Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer
Concurrence	Rehnquist (in judgment), joined by O'Connor
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. VI, XIV
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Ohio v. Roberts (1980)

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that prior testimonial statements of witnesses who have since become unavailable may not be admitted without cross-examination.