1. This case raises the fundamental question of when a statement is "testimonial" and thus subject to the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. See Smith v. Arizona, No. 22-899, slip op. at 1 (U.S. June 21, 2024). That clause provides a criminal defendant with the "bedrock procedural guarantee" "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 42 (2004); U.S. CONST. amend. VI.

2. Here, the prosecution's case at trial turned on information contained in a report prepared specifically for, and submitted at, Petitioner's bail hearing. The prosecution, however, declined to call the individual who prepared that report. The trial court nonetheless admitted the evidence, leading to Petitioner's conviction. The Court of Appeals affirmed in a 5-2 decision. It held that Petitioner had no right to confront the report's author because, although the report was prepared with the specific purpose of assisting the trial court to set Petitioner's bail in this very same prosecution, the report was not created "for the primary purpose of serving as trial testimony." App. at 2. That decision is wrong, threatens to gut the Sixth Amendment's vital confrontation right, and underscores the confusion and division in the lower courts over how to assess a statement's testimonial character. See Transcript of Oral Argument at 27, Smith, No. 22-899 (Sotomayor, J.) ("There's a circuit split on ... what test exists for an out-of-court statement to be testimonial.").

Whether a pretrial report prepared by a criminal justice agency employee is a 'testimonial' statement subject to the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause when used as evidence at trial without calling its author to testify