Here is a link to a newspaper article.
I'd like comments from anyone who has read the article.
LINK HERE Basically it is about conflicting rights in a court decision.
The problem:Now the court must decide whether a killer may go free in a case where the witness is not just missing, but dead. During the oral argument in April in the Giles case, several justices, including Scalia, said they were reluctant to relax the confrontation rule unless it could be shown that the defendant killed the witness specifically to silence her.
Rarely is such proof available, prosecutors say.
"This is a bedrock principle. The Constitution says if you are going to make an allegation, the person you are accusing has a right to look you in the face and challenge what are saying," said David Feige, a law professor at Seton Hall in New Jersey. "We should not erode something as basic as that."
In two rulings, Justice Antonin Scalia set down a firm rule barring use of such evidence from absent witnesses. He cited the 6th Amendment, which says in part, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him
The lone dissenter, Justice Richard C. Bosson, said, "The witness cannot speak for herself because she is dead at Romero's hands. It seems a perversion of the Constitution and the Confrontation Clause to allow any defendant to profit so from his own misdeeds
What are your comments?
