Prior history
On the night of June 16, 1962 the manager of a 7-Eleven in Harris County, Texas was robbed of $375 (currently equivalent to $3359). The robber fled from the store but the store manager claimed to see him talking to another man at a nearby street intersection. Responding officers found an abandoned automobile with a flat tire and a still-warm engine at the intersection. A police dog tracked a scent from the car's front seat to the 7-11 store and then across the street, into a wooded area, and then to the front yard of a nearby house. There they found Bob Granville Pointer hiding in the shadow of a tree and arrested him. A search of Pointer recovered $81 in his wallet and $65 in his shoe.
At a preliminary hearing (called in Texas an "examining trial") was held. Examining trials have a prosecutor, defense and take place before a magistrate or district judge. Examining trials require the prosecutor to show the presiding officer that probable cause exists and determines if the accused will be granted bail and on what conditions. If the prosecutor demonstrates evidence supporting probable cause to believe the accused committed the charged act, then the accused is indicted.
In Pointer's examining trial the chief witness was the store manager, Kenneth W. Phillips. Phillips identified Pointer and testified that he had been robbed by Pointer at gunpoint and feared for his life. According to Article 1408 of the Texas Penal code in operation at the time, robbery with violence or "putting in fear of life or bodily injury" was punishable for terms of confinement of five years to life, no matter the amount. Pointer and co-defendant Lloyd Earl Dillard were not represented by any attorney in the hearing. Dillard asked Phillips a few questions but Pointer did not. The examining trial ended with indictments of both Pointer and Dillard.
After the examining trial, Phillips moved to California and did not return to Texas for Pointer's criminal trial in District Court. The prosecutor introduced the transcript of Phillips' testimony from the examining trial instead. Pointer's attorney objected to the inability to cross-examine Phillips but was overruled. The jury convicted Pointer and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
On appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Pointer's attorney repeated the argument that Phillips' non-appearance deprived Pointer of his right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him, as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. The Texas court held that Pointer could have cross-examined Phillips at the examining trial and chose not to. Considering the responsibility of a layperson like Pointer to carry out such a cross-examination without assistance, it further ruled that examining trials did not require counsel because they preceded indictment.
Within some criminal justice systems, a preliminary hearing, preliminary examination, preliminary inquiry, evidentiary hearing or probable cause hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether there is enough evidence to require a trial. At such a hearing, the defendant may be assisted by a lawyer.
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 the protections of this amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. The case extended the right to counsel, which had been found under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to impose requirements on the federal government, by imposing those requirements upon the states as well.
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.
In American procedural law, a continuance is the postponement of a hearing, trial, or other scheduled court proceeding at the request of either or both parties in the dispute, or by the judge sua sponte. In response to delays in bringing cases to trial, some states have adopted "fast-track" rules that sharply limit the ability of judges to grant continuances. However, a motion for continuance may be granted when necessitated by unforeseeable events, or for other reasonable cause articulated by the movant, especially when the court deems it necessary and prudent in the "interest of justice."
The judicial system of Israel consists of secular courts and religious courts. The law courts constitute a separate and independent unit of Israel's Ministry of Justice. The system is headed by the President of the Supreme Court and the Minister of Justice.
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.
Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from eliciting statements from the defendant about themselves after the point that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches.
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.
A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer specializing in the defense of individuals and companies charged with criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained, while others are employed by the various jurisdictions with criminal courts for appointment to represent indigent persons; the latter are generally called public defenders. The terminology is imprecise because each jurisdiction may have different practices with various levels of input from state and federal law or consent decrees. Some jurisdictions use a rotating system of appointments, with judges appointing a private practice attorney or firm for each case.
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.
United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that a criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to counsel at a lineup held after indictment.
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.
Grand juries in the United States are groups of citizens empowered by United States federal or state law to conduct legal proceedings, chiefly investigating potential criminal conduct and determining whether criminal charges should be brought. The grand jury originated under the law of England and spread through colonization to other jurisdictions as part of the common law. Today, however, the United States is one of only two jurisdictions, along with Liberia, that continues to use the grand jury to screen criminal indictments.
Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60 (1942), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on two issues of constitutional criminal procedure. Glasser was the first Supreme Court decision to hold that the Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment required the reversal of a criminal defendant's conviction if his lawyer's representation of him was limited by a conflict of interest.
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).
In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257 (1948), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of the right of due process in state court proceedings. The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that criminal prosecutions require the defendant "... to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation...and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." In this case, a witness in a Michigan grand jury hearing was convicted and sentenced to jail without either notice or attorney assistance.
Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213 (1967), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court involving the application of the Speedy Trial Clause of the United States Constitution in state court proceedings. The Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that in criminal prosecutions "...the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial" In this case, a defendant was tried for trespassing and the initial jury could not reach a verdict. The prosecutor neither dismissed nor reinstated the case but used an unusual procedure to leave it open, potentially indefinitely. Klopfer argued that this denied him his right to a speedy trial. In deciding in his favor, the Supreme Court incorporated the speedy trial protections of the Sixth Amendment against the states.
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986), was a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that clarified the relationship of the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment to other constitutional rights in criminal procedure. In this case, evidence against the defendant was probably seized illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment, but he lost the chance to argue that point due to his lawyer's ineffectiveness. The prosecution argued that the defendant's attempt to make a Sixth Amendment argument via a habeas corpus petition was really a way to sneak his Fourth Amendment argument in through the back door. The Court unanimously disagreed, and held that the Fourth Amendment issue and the Sixth Amendment issue represented different constitutional values, and had different requirements for prevailing in court, and therefore were to be treated separately by rules of procedure. Therefore, the habeas corpus petition could go forward. In its opinion, the Court also gave guidance on how to apply its decisions in Stone v. Powell and Strickland v. Washington.
