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.

[2] The statement was allowed into evidence at the trial, and the prosecution relied on it heavily in its closing argument, stating that it completely refuted the defendant's claim of self defense.

For over 20 years prior to Crawford, the controlling standard for admitting statements that unavailable witnesses made to other persons was that of Ohio v. Roberts.

This history, Scalia concluded, clearly shows that the Confrontation Clause was directed at keeping "ex parte" examinations out of the evidentiary record.

Relying on this and the historical record, Scalia stated, "the Framers would not have allowed admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination."

Scalia determined that a prior opportunity for cross-examination was mandatory, and dispositive of whether or not testimonial statements of an unavailable witness are admissible.

"Where testimonial evidence is at issue, however, the Sixth Amendment demands what the common law required: unavailability and a prior opportunity for cross-examination.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist concurred in the result, but would have decided the case on narrower grounds, within the older Roberts framework.

Rehnquist, joined by O'Connor, stated he would not have expanded the right of defendants to exclude out-of-court statements on the basis that they could not confront the witness.

This decision had an immediate, profound effect upon the ability of prosecutors to prove their cases through the use of evidence that had previously been admissible via various exceptions to the hearsay rule.

Justice Scalia's opinion explicitly states that any out-of-court statement that is "testimonial" in nature is not admissible, unless the declarant is unavailable to testify in court, and the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him or her.

Evidence-based prosecution relies heavily on admission of statements under hearsay exceptions to reproduce the evidentiary effect of a victim testifying in court.