Hemphill v. New York, 595 U.S. ___ (2022)
A stray 9-millimeter bullet killed a child after a Bronx street fight. Eyewitnesses described the shooter as wearing a blue shirt or sweater. Police officers determined Gilliam was involved and that Morris was at the scene. A search of Morris’ apartment revealed a 9-millimeter cartridge and .357-caliber bullets. Gilliam initially identified Morris as the shooter but subsequently said that Hemphill was the shooter. Morris was charged with murder and possession of a 9-millimeter handgun. The prosecution agreed to dismiss the murder charges if Morris pleaded guilty to possession of a .357 revolver. Years later, Hemphill was indicted for the murder; his DNA matched a blue sweater found in Morris’ apartment shortly after the murder. Hemphill elicited testimony that police had recovered 9-millimeter ammunition from Morris’ apartment, pointing to Morris as the culprit. Morris was not available to testify. The court allowed the prosecution to introduce parts of Morris’ plea allocation transcript to rebut Hemphill’s theory, reasoning that although Morris’ out-of-court statements had not been subjected to cross-examination, Hemphill’s arguments had “opened the door” and admission of the statements was reasonably necessary to correct a misleading impression. Hemphill was convicted.
The Supreme Court reversed. Admission of the plea allocution transcript violated Hemphill’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. While the Sixth Amendment permits reasonable procedural rules concerning the exercise of a defendant’s confrontation right, the “door-opening principle” is a substantive principle that dictates what material is relevant and admissible. It was not for the trial judge to determine whether Hemphill’s theory that Morris was the shooter was unreliable, incredible, or otherwise misleading in light of the state’s proffered, unconfronted plea evidence, nor whether this evidence was reasonably necessary to correct that misleading impression.
Supreme Court rejects a Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause "exception" based on a theory that the defendant "opened the door" to the admission of unconfronted testimony.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
HEMPHILL v. NEW YORK
certiorari to the court of appeals of new york
No. 20–637. Argued October 5, 2021—Decided January 20, 2022
In April 2006, a stray 9-millimeter bullet killed a 2-year-old child after a street fight in the Bronx. Eyewitnesses described the shooter as wearing a blue shirt or sweater. Police officers determined Ronnell Gilliam was involved and that Nicholas Morris had been at the scene. A search of Morris’ apartment revealed a 9-millimeter cartridge and three .357-caliber bullets. Gilliam initially identified Morris as the shooter, but he subsequently said that Darrell Hemphill, Gilliam’s cousin, was the shooter. Not crediting Gilliam’s recantation, the State charged Morris with the child’s murder and possession of a 9-millimeter handgun. In a subsequent plea deal, the State agreed to dismiss the murder charges against Morris if he pleaded guilty to a new charge of possession of a .357 revolver, a weapon that had not killed the victim. Years later, the State indicted Hemphill for the child’s murder after learning that Hemphill’s DNA matched a blue sweater found in Morris’ apartment shortly after the murder. At his trial, Hemphill elicited undisputed testimony from a prosecution witness that police had recovered 9-millimeter ammunition from Morris’ apartment, thus pointing to Morris as the culprit. Morris was not available to testify at Hemphill’s trial because he was outside the United States. Relying on People v. Reid, 19 N.Y.3d 382, 388, 971 N.E.2d 353, 357, and over the objection of Hemphill’s counsel, the trial court allowed the State to introduce parts of the transcript of Morris’ plea allocution to the .357 gun possession charge as evidence to rebut Hemphill’s theory that Morris committed the murder. The court reasoned that although Morris’ out-of-court statements had not been subjected to cross-examination, Hemphill’s arguments and evidence had “opened the door” and admission of the statements was reasonably necessary to correct the misleading impression Hemphill had created. The State, in its closing argument, cited Morris’ plea allocution and emphasized that possession of a .357 revolver, not murder, was the crime Morris committed. The jury found Hemphill guilty. Both the New York Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals affirmed Hemphill’s conviction.
Held: The trial court’s admission of the transcript of Morris’ plea allocution over Hemphill’s objection violated Hemphill’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him. Pp. 6–15.
(a) The State’s threshold argument—that Hemphill’s failure to present his claim adequately to the state courts should prevent the Court from deciding his federal-law challenge to the state-court decision—is rejected. Hemphill satisfied the presentation requirement in state court. See Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576, 584. At every level of his proceedings in state court, Hemphill argued that the admission of Morris’ plea allocution violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation as interpreted by this Court. And “[o]nce a federal claim is properly presented, a party can make any argument in support of that claim.” Yee v. Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 534. Pp. 6–8.
(b) The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides a criminal defendant the bedrock right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, the Court examined the history of the confrontation right at common law and concluded that “the principal evil at which the Confrontation Clause was directed was the civil-law mode of criminal procedure,” which allowed the “use of ex parte examinations as evidence against the accused.” Id., at 50. The Crawford Court reasoned that because “the Sixth Amendment does not suggest any open-ended exceptions from the confrontation requirement to be developed by the courts,” the confrontation guarantee was “most naturally read” to admit “only those exceptions established at the time of the founding.” Id., at 54; see also Giles v. California, 554 U.S. 353, 377. Because “the Framers would not have allowed admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination,” the Court rejected its previous “reliability approach” to the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation right described in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, which had permitted the admission of statements of an unavailable witness so long as those statements had “adequate indicia of reliability.” Pp. 8–9.
(c) The Court rejects the State’s contention that the “opening the door” rule incorporated in People v. Reid and applied here is not a Confrontation Clause exception at all but merely a “procedural rule” limiting only the manner of asserting the confrontation right, not its substantive scope. While the Court’s precedents do recognize that the Sixth Amendment leaves States with flexibility to adopt reasonable procedural rules that bear on the exercise of a defendant’s confrontation right, see, e.g., Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 327, the door-opening principle discussed in Reid is not in the same class of procedural rules. Reid’s door-opening principle is a substantive principle of evidence that dictates what material is relevant and admissible in a case. The State would have trial judges weigh the reliability or credibility of testimonial hearsay evidence, but that approach would negate Crawford’s emphatic rejection of the reliability-based approach to the Confrontation Clause guarantee. Here, it was not for the trial judge to determine whether Hemphill’s theory that Morris was the shooter was unreliable, incredible, or otherwise misleading in light of the State’s proffered, unconfronted plea evidence, nor whether this evidence was reasonably necessary to correct that misleading impression. Pp. 9–11.
(d) The Court also rejects the State’s insistence that the Reid rule is necessary to safeguard the truth-finding function of courts because it prevents the selective and misleading introduction of evidence. The Court has not allowed such considerations to override the rights the Constitution confers to criminal defendants. And none of the cases the State relies upon for support—Kansas v. Ventris, 556 U.S. 586; Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222; Walder v. United States, 347 U. S. 62—involved exceptions to constitutional requirements. Pp. 11–13.
(e) The State’s concern that a reversal will leave prosecutors without recourse to protect against abuses of the confrontation right is overstated. “[W]ell-established rules” of evidence “permit trial judges to exclude evidence if its probative value is outweighed by certain other factors such as unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or potential to mislead the jury.” Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 326. Finally, the rule of completeness does not apply here, as Morris’ plea allocution was not part of any statement that Hemphill introduced. The Court does not address whether and under what circumstances that rule might allow the admission of testimonial hearsay against a criminal defendant. Pp. 13–14.
35 N.Y.3d 1035, 150 N. E. 3d 356, reversed and remanded.
Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kavanaugh, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
MANDATE ISSUED. |
JUDGMENT ISSUED. |
Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kavanaugh, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion. |
Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kavanaugh, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion. |
Argued. For petitioner: Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, Cal. For respondent: Gina Mignola, Assistant District Attorney, Bronx, N. Y. |
Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Adam Oustatcher DENIED. |
ARGUMENT RESCHEDULED FOR Tuesday, October 5, 2021. |
Reply of Darrell Hemphill submitted. |
Reply of petitioner Darrell Hemphill filed. (Distributed) |
Amicus brief of Brief of Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota submitted. |
Amicus brief of The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York submitted. |
Brief amici curiae of Brief of Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, and South Dakota filed. (Distributed) |
Brief amicus curiae of The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York and The National District Apporneys Association filed. (Distributed) |
Brief amici curiae of The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York and The National District Attorneys Association filed. (Distributed) |
Motion of Adam Oustatcher for leave to file amicus brief submitted. |
Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Adam Oustatcher. (Distributed) |
Brief of State of New York submitted. |
Brief of respondent State of New York filed. (Distributed) |
The Sealed Documents from the Court of Appeals of New York has been electronically filed. The entire record can be accessed from the Court of Appeals of New York web site. Also the record received from the Supreme Court of New York County of Bronx has been electronically filed. |
The Court of Appeals of New York record can be accessed on its website. SEALED record material from the court of appeals electronically received. The Supreme Court of New York, County of Bronx record material has been electronically received. |
CIRCULATED |
Record has been requested from the Court of Appeals of New York. |
ARGUMENT SET FOR Tuesday, October 12, 2021. |
Amicus brief of Evidence and Criminal Procedure Professors submitted. |
Amicus brief of The Innocence Project and Innocent Network submitted. |
Amicus brief of Richard D. Friedman submitted. |
Amicus brief of Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey submitted. |
Amicus brief of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers submitted. |
Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed. |
Amicus brief of Constitutional Accountability Center submitted. |
Amicus brief of The Bronx Defenders, et al. submitted. |
Amicus brief of The American Civil Liberties Union, The New York Civil Liberties Union and The Rutherford Institute submitted. |
Brief amici curiae of Evidence and Criminal Procedure Professors filed. |
Brief amici curiae of The Innocence Project and Innocent Network filed. |
Brief amici curiae of The American Civil Liberties Union, et al. filed. |
Brief amicus curiae of Richard D. Friedman filed. |
Brief amicus curiae of Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey filed. |
Brief amicus curiae of Constitutional Accountability Center filed. |
Brief amici curiae of The Bronx Defenders, et al. filed. |
Brief of Darrell Hemphill submitted. |
Joint Appendix submitted. |
Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed) |
Brief of petitioner Darrell Hemphill filed. |
Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Darrell Hemphill |
Consent to the filing of amicus briefs received from counsel for Darrell Hemphill submitted. |
Motion to extend the time to file the briefs on the merits granted. The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including June 22, 2021. The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 10, 2021. |
Motion for an extension of time to file the briefs on the merits filed. |
Motion of Darrell Hemphill for an extension of time submitted. |
Petition GRANTED. |
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/16/2021. |
Reply of petitioner Darrell Hemphill filed. (Distributed) |
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/1/2021. |
Brief of respondent State of New York in opposition filed. |
Brief of respondent State of New York in opposition filed. |
Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is further extended to and including March 1, 2021. |
Motion to extend the time to file a response from February 1, 2021 to March 1, 2021, submitted to The Clerk. |
Brief amicus curiae of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed. |
Brief amici curiae of Evidence and Criminal Procedure Professors filed. |
Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including February 1, 2021. |
Motion to extend the time to file a response from December 18, 2020 to February 1, 2021, submitted to The Clerk. |
Response Requested. (Due December 18, 2020) |
Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner Darrell Hemphill |
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/4/2020. |
Waiver of right of respondent State of New York to respond filed. |
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due December 10, 2020) |