Whether a district court's discretion to limit the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses is as broad as the general discretion to limit evidence under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and includes forcing the defendant to put on alternative evidence as part of an affirmative case rather than confront the witness called by the government?

QUESTION PRESENTED Whether a district court’s discretion to limit the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses is as broad as the general discretion to limit evidence under Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence and includes forcing the defendant to put on alternative evidence as part of an affirmative case rather than confront the witness called by the government? The court below upheld a ban on acknowledged core Sixth Amendment cross-examination of a case investigator concerning evidence of another theory of the murder in question on the basis of the district court’s discretion under Rule 403 and a determination that the defendant could seek to elicit relevant evidence affirmatively rather than by confronting the witness called by the government. While the court’s decision consistent with other courts of appeal that regard Rule 403 balancing as determinative of confrontation issues, other courts of appeal emphatically reject this conclusion and hold that Sixth Amendment confrontation issues must be determined independently. i STATEMENT PURSUANT TO RULE 14.1(b) AND RULE 29.6 The names of all parties to this petition appear in the caption of the case on the cover page. The parties have no parent or subsidiary companies and do not issue stock. The proceedings directly related to this case are as follows: e United States v. Rivera, No. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Judgment entered May 7, 2018. e United States v. Rivera, No. 18-1393-cr, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judgments entered October 17, 2019 and January 23, 2020. ii