The Constitution guarantees a criminal defendant may confront his accusers, and that right means prosecutors can't use a wife's taped statement to police to try to undermine her husband at trial, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The high court sided with a man convicted of assaulting an acquaintance he had accused of trying to rape his wife. Sylvia Crawford did not testify at Michael Crawford's trial, but prosecutors played a tape they claimed showed her story did not match his.
Michael Crawford's lawyers had no opportunity to cross-examine Sylvia Crawford about the tape, a unanimous Supreme Court said.
"That alone is sufficient to make out a violation of the Sixth Amendment," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.
Details here from the AP via CNN.com. The Court's opinion is here.