{"ID":55291,"name":"Hammon v. Indiana","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/cases\/2005\/05-5705","view_count":0,"docket_number":"05-5705","additional_docket_numbers":["05-5224"],"manner_of_jurisdiction":"Writ of \u003Ci\u003Ecertiorari\u003C\/i\u003E","first_party":"Hershel Hammon","second_party":"Indiana","timeline":[{"event":"Granted","dates":[1130738400],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/39428"},{"event":"Argued","dates":[1142834400],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/39429"},{"event":"Decided","dates":[1150693200],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/39430"}],"lower_court":{"ID":35,"name":"Supreme Court of Indiana","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/taxonomy\/term\/35"},"facts_of_the_case":"\u003Cp\u003EHershel Hammon was charged with domestic abuse after police responded to a call from his house. When they arrived, Hammon\u0027s wife told police that her husband had beaten her. While Mrs. Hammon did not testify at Mr. Hammon\u0027s trial, the police officer did testify about what she had told him. Mr. Hammon\u0027s attorney objected to the admission of the testimony without cross-examination, but the judge allowed it under the \u0022excited utterance\u0022 exception to the general rule against hearsay testimony (second-hand reports of what someone said or did). The police officer was not trying to preserve evidence but merely to assess the incident, so Mrs. Hammon\u0027s statements to him were not the sort of testimony prohibited under the U.S. Supreme Court\u0027s decision in \u003Cem\u003ECrawford v. Washington\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\n","question":"\u003Cp\u003EUnder the U.S. Supreme Court\u0027s interpretation of the Sixth Amendment in \u003Cem\u003ECrawford v. Washington\u003C\/em\u003E, may statements made to police during investigation of a crime, though not made with the intent to preserve evidence, be admitted in court without allowing defendants to cross-examine the person who made the original statements?\u003C\/p\u003E\n","conclusion":"\u003Cp\u003EYes. In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court ruled that the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted in \u003Cem\u003ECrawford v. Washington\u003C\/em\u003E, does not apply to \u0022non-testimonial\u0022 statements not intended to be preserved as evidence at trial. In Hammon\u0027s case, however, the Court ruled that Mrs. Hammon\u0027s statements to the police were testimonial. At the time of her questioning, Hammon faced \u0022no emergency in progress\u0022 and \u0022no immediate threat to her person.\u0022 Instead, the relative safety of the conversation between Mrs. Hammon and the officer made it \u0022formal enough\u0022 to qualify as a \u0022testimonial\u0022 statement intended as evidence of the past crime. The Court left open the possibility that Hershel Hammon could have forfeited his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him by coercively preventing his wife from testifying. Otherwise, however, the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment did not allow Mrs. Hammon\u0027s testimony to be used against Mr. Hammon without her presence at the trial. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent criticizing the Court\u0027s test as unworkable. In Justice Thomas\u0027s view, Hammon\u0027s statement was not testimonial, because the conversation was not a \u0022formalized dialogue.\u0022 This case was decided along with \u003Cem\u003EDavis v. Washington\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\n","advocates":[{"advocate":{"ID":39264,"name":"Richard D. Friedman","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/people\/richard_d_friedman_0","view_count":0,"last_name":"Friedman","roles":null,"thumbnail":null,"length_of_service":0,"identifier":"richard__d_friedman"},"advocate_description":"argued the cause for Petitioner","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_advocate\/case_advocate\/19104"},{"advocate":{"ID":42698,"name":"Thomas M. Fisher","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/people\/thomas_m_fisher","view_count":0,"last_name":"Fisher","roles":null,"thumbnail":null,"length_of_service":0,"identifier":"thomas_m_fisher"},"advocate_description":"argued the cause for Respondent","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_advocate\/case_advocate\/19105"},{"advocate":{"ID":28554,"name":"Irving L. 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