Jesse Castillo v. Illinois

Q U EST IO N P R ESEN T ED FO R R EV IEW The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in pertinent part, that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. In U nited S ta tes v. O wens, 484 U.S. 554, 559-60 (1988), this Court held that a defendant’s confrontation rights are not violated by the introduction of a witness’ out-of-court identification, even if the testifying witness has memory loss. This Court explained further in C ra wford v. W a shington, 541 U.S. 36, 59 fn. 9 (2004), that admission of out-of-court testimonial statements are admissible “so long as the declarant is present at trial to defend or explain it.” The question presented here is: When a witness makes recorded statements to police identifying the defendant as the perpetrator of a crime, but suffers com plete memory loss prior to testifying at trial, does the introduction of that witness’ out-of-court testimonial statements violate the Confrontation Clause?