# Lilly v. Virginia > Supreme Court of the United States · June 14, 1999 · 527 U.S. 116 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433830 ## Case - **Full name:** Lilly v. Virginia - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 14, 1999 - **Citations:** 527 U.S. 116; 119 S. Ct. 1887; 144 L. Ed. 2d 117; 1999 U.S. LEXIS 4006 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Thomas - **Judges:** Stevens, Scalia, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy - **Cited by:** 1,046 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Reported abrogated by Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) — not on the Supreme Court's list. - Negative treatments: 3 - Distinguished by: 3 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433830 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - 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 cl… - 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 Ri… - explaining that “[independent 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 Rig… - 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.… ## Opinion text Justice Thomas, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I join Parts I and VI of the Court’s opinion and concur in the judgment. Though I continue to adhere to my view that the Confrontation Clause “extends to any witness who actually testifies at trial” and “is implicated by extrajudicial statements only insofar as they are contained in formalized testimonial material, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions,” White v. Illinois, 502 U. S. 346, 365 (1992) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), I agree with The Chief Justice that the Glause does not impose a “blanket ban on the government’s use of accomplice statements that incriminate a defendant,” post, at 147. *144 Such an approach not only departs from an original understanding of the Confrontation Clause but also freezes our jurisprudence by making trial court decisions excluding such statements virtually unreviewable. I also agree with The Chief Justice that the lower courts did not “analyz[e] the confession under the second prong of the Roberts inquiry,” post, at 148, and therefore see no reason for the plurality to address an issue upon which those courts did not pass. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433830. Public record. Not legal advice.