# Olden v. Kentucky

> Supreme Court of the United States · December 12, 1988 · 488 U.S. 227

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431498

## Case

- **Full name:** Olden v. Kentucky
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** December 12, 1988
- **Citations:** 488 U.S. 227; 109 S. Ct. 480; 102 L. Ed. 2d 513; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 5621
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Marshall
- **Judges:** Marshall
- **Cited by:** 504 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431498

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that under U.S. Supreme Court case law "'the cross-examiner has traditionally been allowed to impeach, i.e., discredit the witness," (quoting Davis, 415 U.S. at 316, 94 S.Ct. 1105), and "that 'a criminal defendant states a violation of the Confrontation Clause by showi…
- holding that the petitioner’s confrontation rights were violated, and that, under Van Arsdall, the violation was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, where it concerned the limitation of cross-examination of the prosecution’s key witness, and the only other corroborating ev…
- holding the trial court erred when it excluded evidence of a rape victim’s relationship with another man when evidence of that relationship would have provided strong evidence of her motive to lie about being raped and there was no alternative evidence that would have tended t…
- holding that a court's refusal to allow a defendant to introduce evidence revealing the prosecuting witness' sexual relationship with her boyfriend to show her motive to falsely accuse the defendant of rape violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to mount a defense
- holding that the defendant in a rape trial had a constitutionally protected right to cross-examine the complainant on an issue the trial court excluded as too prejudicial

## Opinion text

Justice Marshall,
dissenting.
I continue to believe that summary dispositions deprive litigants of a fair opportunity to be heard on the merits and create a significant risk that the Court is rendering an erroneous or ill-advised decision that may confuse the lower courts. See Pennsylvania v. Bruder, ante, p. 11 (Mar *234 shall, J., dissenting); Rhodes v. Stewart, ante, p. 4 (Marshall, J., dissenting); Buchanan v. Stanships, Inc., 485 U. S. 265, 269 (1988) (Marshall, J., dissenting); Commissioner v. McCoy, 484 U. S. 3, 7 (1987) (Marshall, J., dissenting). I therefore dissent from the Court’s decision today to reverse summarily the decision below.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431498. Public record. Not legal advice.