stating that appellate courts defer to trial court determinations of whether evidence is admissible under hearsay rules, but when that evidence is objected to as violative of the Confrontation Clause, " 'independent review is ... necessary ... to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal principles’ governing the factual circumstances necessary to satisfy the protections of the Bill of Rights”
How later courts described this case
- stating that appellate courts defer to trial court determinations of whether evidence is admissible under hearsay rules, but when that evidence is objected to as violative of the Confrontation Clause, " 'independent review is ... necessary ... to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal principles’ governing the factual circumstances necessary to satisfy the protections of the Bill of Rights”
- explaining that "[i]ndependent review is ... necessary" for "fact-intensive, mixed questions of constitutional law" in order "to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal principles governing the factual circumstances necessary to satisfy the protections of the Bill of Rights" (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)
- stating that "[t]he central concern of the Confrontation Clause is to ensure the reliability of the evidence against a criminal defendant by subjecting it to rigorous testing in the context of an adversary proceeding before the trier of fact" (quoting Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 845, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 3163, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990))
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Reported abrogated by Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) — not on the Supreme Court's list
Under [ Ohio v. Roberts (1980) 448 U.S. 56, 100 S.Ct. 2531] 65 L.Ed.2d 597, relied upon by Lilly and abrogated by Crawford ], an out-of-court nontestimonial statement not subject to prior cross-examination could not be admitted without a judicial determination regarding reliability.
Questioned by People v. Schmaus, 135 Cal. Rptr. 2d 521 (2003)
Lilly, supra, 527 U.S. 116, does cast doubt on the continuing validity of aspects of
Declined to follow by State v. Holmes, 342 S.C. 113 (2000)
Because of the fractured nature of the Supreme Court’s Lilly decision, and because it is based largely on the federal hearsay rules, we decline to adopt the reasoning of the Lilly plurality.
Distinguished
Distinguished by People v. Valles, 412 P.3d 537 (2013)
¶ 64 Lilly is distinguishable from this case, because, here, Castillo Jr.'s statement was not a custodial confession, and was not made to garner favor for himself in the eyes of law enforcement officials.
Distinguished by United States v. Collins, 240 F. Supp. 2d 1078 (2002)
In denying Collins' Motion, the Court believes that the Supreme Court's decisions in Gray and Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999) are distinguishable from the case at hand and/or that the pitfalls found in them can be avoided by following the dictates of Richardson.
Distinguished by United States v. Walsh, 7 F. App'x 20 (2001)
Lilly, however, is inapposite
The opinion
Justice Scalia,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
During a custodial interrogation, Mark Lilly told police officers that petitioner committed the charged murder. The prosecution introduced a tape recording of these statements at trial without making Mark available for cross-examination. In my view, that is a paradigmatic Confrontation Clause violation. See White v. Illinois, 502 U. S. 346, 364-365 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“The federal constitutional right of confrontation extends to any witness who actually testifies at trial” and “extrajudicial statements only insofar as they are contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions”). Since the violation is clear, the case need be remanded only for a harmless-error determination. I therefore join Parts I, II, and VI of the Court’s opinion and coneur in the judgment.