Quoting Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222 (1971), it said:[2] ...[t]he shield provided by Miranda cannot be perverted into a license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances.In April 2006, two men became involved in a fight with a group of other people on a street in the Bronx.

In an 8–1 decision authored by Justice Sotomayor, the court held that a criminal defendant does not waive his right to confront adverse witnesses simply by making an argument based on testimonial out-of-court statements such as plea allocutions.

Justice Alito authored a concurring opinion in which he addresses the conditions under which a defendant will have waived his right to confront adverse witnesses.

The opinion rejects the State's assertion that the rule in Reid is necessary for courts to carry out their primary duty – to ascertain facts – by preventing the introduction of misleading evidence.

While this task is important, the Court has never allowed this consideration to override the protections afforded to criminal defendants by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Lastly, the opinion contends with the assertion that a reversal of Hemphill's conviction would leave prosecutors without recourse to protect against the abuse of the confrontation right.

Alito then addresses past cases in which a defendant's conduct has constituted an implied waiver of his Sixth Amendment right to confront adverse witnesses.

As in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337 (1970), implied waiver may also be found in a defendant's “conducting himself in a manner so disorderly, disruptive, and disrespectful of the court that his trial cannot be carried on with him in the courtroom”.

Alito notes that the issue with the appellate court's rule in Reid is that its application in the case was predicated on neither an express nor an implicit waiver of the right to confront adverse witnesses.

Federal Rules of Evidence #106 states: If a party introduces all or part of a writing or recorded statement, an adverse party may require the introduction, at that time, of any other part — or any other writing or recorded statement — that in fairness ought to be considered at the same time.He argues that this analysis is analogous to logic regarding the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination.

In this example, such a defendant purposefully elects which details to disclose in his testimony, and so he cannot reasonably claim a constitutional immunity from being cross-examined on matters that he himself has put before a jury, and has thus deemed disputable.