DueProcess JusticiabilityDoctri
Was the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation violated?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED A. Was the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation violated when the court allowed the use of the prior transcripted testimony of the complaining witness in this sexual assault case, who was physically available to testify, because her unprivileged refusal to testify was recognized as a type of witness “unavailability” under state law, or is Sixth Amendment “unavailability,” which is sufficient to predicate the constitutional use of testimonial hearsay, confined to historic categories such as death, illness, insanity, or the contrivance of the defendant to render the witness unavailable, that were extant at common law at the time the Sixth Amendment was adopted? B. Was the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment violated by a state law that conferred immunity on the complaining witness in a sexual assault case against any power of the court to impose an incarceratory sanction for refusal to testify in a case in which the complaining witness, without privilege, refused to testify? i