The Compulsory Process Clause within the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution lets criminal case defendants attain witnesses in their favor by way of a court-ordered subpoena. The Clause is generally interpreted as letting defendants present their own case at trial, though several specific limitations have been placed by the Supreme Court of the United States since this rule began.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor. [1]
The Compulsory Process Clause was part of the Sixth Amendment, which was ratified in 1791. Between ratification and the Fourteenth Amendment, there were very limited instances in which a court dealt with compulsory process. One important example is the trial of Vice President Aaron Burr, where Burr tried to subpoena documents from the President in order to sustain his defense. Though the case was heard in Federal Circuit Court the presiding judge was Chief Justice John Marshall who ordered the papers be issued, invoking the Sixth Amendment. [2] [3]
After the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Supreme Court dealt with a series of cases regarding the guarantees offered by the Due Process Clause. [4] The first case to evaluate the procedural trial rights of defendants in terms of the Due Process Clause was the 1897 decision in Hovey v. Elliot. In Hovey, the Supreme Court specifically applied the Due Process Clause to fair trial guarantees, holding that due process "secures an 'inherent right of defense'". [5] This doctrine eventually came to protect the defendant's ability to "present exculpatory evidence and testimony of witnesses". [6] For example, the Court in Brady v. Maryland used the Due Process Clause to require the prosecution in criminal proceedings to disclose evidence that is favorable to the defendant prior to a trial. [7]
The Court's due process jurisprudence was expanded with the 1948 decision in In re Oliver which revised the breadth of the fundamental fairness doctrine. [8] The Court wrote:
A person's right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defense—a right to his day in court—are basic in our system of jurisprudence; and these rights include, as a minimum, a right to examine the witnesses against him, to offer testimony, and to be represented by counsel. [9]
In Washington v. Texas (1967), the Supreme Court held that the Clause barred a state law that made persons charged or convicted as co-participants in a common crime incompetent to testify on behalf of one another. [10] This was a holding based on the Due Process Clause, a departure from the Oliver cases. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote the majority opinion, stated that compulsory process was critical to the very ability to "present a defense...[a] defendant's version of the facts". [11] This broad right was necessary to note as its absence would make the right to compel witnesses futile. [12]
However, in Taylor v. Illinois (1988), the Court rejected a challenge to witness preclusion rules, holding that the Clause did not provide for an "absolute" right for defendants. [13] The Court held that "The Compulsory Process Clause provides [the defendant] with an effective weapon, but it is a weapon that cannot be used irresponsibly". [14] There are "countervailing public interests" which weigh against an absolute position of applying the Clause; this signaled a major turn since Washington two decades earlier. [15]
In modern practice, a violation of the Compulsory Process Clause leads to the reversal of a conviction unless the original error is "harmless". [16] This occurs because the exclusion of defense evidence can "significantly undermine fundamental elements of the [defendant's] defense". [17] [18] The remedy is not automatic reversal only because not every Sixth Amendment error is automatically a Due Process error. [19]
The Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments also require compulsory process as an element of due process. State statutes and constitutions are another source of the right to confront witnesses.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution sets forth rights related to criminal prosecutions. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the United States Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court has applied all but one of this amendment's protections to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), is a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruling that held that laws permitting the compulsory sterilization of criminals are unconstitutional as it violates a person's rights given under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause. The relevant Oklahoma law applied to "habitual criminals" but excluded white-collar crimes from carrying sterilization penalties.
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court reversed the convictions of nine young black men for allegedly raping two white women on a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama. The majority of the Court reasoned that the right to retain and be represented by a lawyer was fundamental to a fair trial and that at least in some circumstances, the trial judge must inform a defendant of this right. In addition, if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one sufficiently far in advance of trial to permit the lawyer to prepare adequately for the trial.
Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990), was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the Sixth Amendment. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, which provides criminal defendants with the right to confront witnesses against them, did not bar the use of one-way closed-circuit television to present testimony by an alleged child sex abuse victim.
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to state and local governments by incorporation via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868.
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that reformulated the standard for determining when the admission of hearsay statements in criminal cases is permitted under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court held that prior testimonial statements of witnesses who have since become unavailable may not be admitted without cross-examination.
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." The right only applies to criminal prosecutions, not civil cases or other proceedings. Generally, the right is to have a face-to-face confrontation with witnesses who are offering testimonial evidence against the accused in the form of cross-examination during a trial. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the right to confrontation applicable to the states and not just the federal government.
Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319 (2006), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the right of a criminal defendant to present evidence that a third party instead committed the crime. The Court vacated the rape and murder conviction in South Carolina of a man who had been denied the opportunity to present evidence of a third party's guilt, because the trial court believed the prosecutor's forensic evidence was too strong for the defendant's evidence to raise an inference of innocence. The Court ruled unanimously that this exclusion violated the right of a defendant to have a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense, because the strength of a prosecutor's case had no logical relationship to whether a defendant's evidence was too weak to be admissible.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980), is a United States Supreme Court decision dealing with the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
United States criminal procedure derives from several sources of law: the baseline protections of the United States Constitution; federal and state statutes; federal and state rules of criminal procedure ; and state and federal case law. Criminal procedures are distinct from civil procedures in the US.
Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled, by a 6–2 vote, that it is a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights for the prosecutor to comment to the jury on the defendant's declining to testify, or for the judge to instruct the jury that such silence is evidence of guilt.
United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858 (1982), is a United States Supreme Court case that determined the constitutionality of deporting aliens who might give testimony in criminal alien smuggling prosecutions. Because deporting alien witnesses might take away a testimony that would be both “material and favorable” to the defendant, it gives rise to a potential motion from the defense to dismiss the indictment under the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The United States Constitution contains several provisions regarding the law of criminal procedure.
Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution is applicable in state courts as well as federal courts. Jackie Washington had attempted to call his co-defendant as a witness, but was blocked by Texas courts because state law prevented co-defendants from testifying for each other, under the theory that they would be likely to lie for each other on the stand.
Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that defense witnesses can be prevented from testifying under certain circumstances, even if that hurts the defense's case. Taylor was the first case to hold that there is no absolute bar to blocking the testimony of a surprise witness, even if that is an essential witness for the defendant, a limitation of the broad right to present a defense recognized in Washington v. Texas (1967).
Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400 (1965), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of the right of to confront accusers in state court proceedings. The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that, in criminal prosecutions, the defendant has a right "...to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor..." In this case, a person arrested in Texas for robbery was deprived of the ability to cross-examine a witness when the lower court allowed the introduction of a transcript of that witness's earlier testimony at a preliminary proceeding instead of compelling attendance by the witness at trial.
Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264 (1959), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the knowing use of false testimony by a prosecutor in a criminal case violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, even if the testimony affects only the credibility of the witness and does not directly relate to the innocence or guilt of the defendant.
Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires that guilty verdicts be unanimous in trials for serious crimes. Only cases in Oregon and Louisiana were affected by the ruling because every other state already had this requirement. The decision incorporated the Sixth Amendment requirement for unanimous jury criminal convictions against the states, and thereby overturned the Court's previous decision from the 1972 cases Apodaca v. Oregon and Johnson v. Louisiana.
