MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Sixth Amendment provides in part that:
Two years ago in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, we held that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of right to counsel obligatory upon the States. The question we find necessary to decide in this case is whether the Amendment's guarantee of a defendant's right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him," which has been held to include the right to cross-examine those witnesses, is also made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The petitioner Pointer and one Dillard were arrested in Texas and taken before a state judge for a preliminary hearing (in Texas called the "examining trial") on a charge of having robbed Kenneth W. Phillips of $375 "by assault, or violence, or by putting in fear of life or bodily injury," in violation of Texas Penal Code Art. 1408. At this hearing an Assistant District Attorney conducted the prosecution and examined witnesses, but neither of the defendants, both of whom were laymen, had a lawyer. Phillips as chief witness for the State gave his version of the alleged robbery in detail, identifying petitioner as the man who had robbed him at gunpoint. Apparently Dillard tried to cross-examine Phillips but Pointer did not, although Pointer was said to have tried to cross-examine some other witnesses at the hearing. Petitioner was subsequently indicted on a charge of having committed the robbery. Some time before the trial was held, Phillips moved to California. After putting in evidence to show that Phillips had moved and did not intend to return to Texas, the State at the trial offered the transcript of Phillips' testimony given at the preliminary hearing as evidence against petitioner. Petitioner's counsel immediately objected to introduction of the transcript, stating, "Your Honor, we will object to that, as it is a denial of the confrontment of the witnesses against the Defendant."
In this Court we do not find it necessary to decide one aspect of the question petitioner raises, that is, whether failure to appoint counsel to represent him at the preliminary hearing unconstitutionally denied him the assistance of counsel within the meaning of Gideon v. Wainwright, supra. In making that argument petitioner relies mainly on White v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 59, in which this Court reversed a conviction based in part upon evidence that the defendant had pleaded guilty to the crime at a preliminary hearing where he was without counsel. Since the preliminary hearing there, as in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52, was one in which pleas to the charge could be made, we held in White as in Hamilton that a preliminary proceeding of that nature was so critical a stage in the prosecution that a defendant at that point was entitled to counsel. But the State informs us that at a Texas preliminary hearing, such as is involved here, pleas of guilty are not guilty are not accepted and that the judge decides only whether the accused should be bound over to the grand jury and if so whether he should be admitted to bail. Because of these significant differences in the procedures of the respective States, we cannot say that the White case is necessarily controlling
I.
The Sixth Amendment is a part of what is called our Bill of Rights. In Gideon v. Wainwright, supra, in which this Court held that the Sixth Amendment's right to the assistance of counsel is obligatory upon the States, we did so on the ground that "a provision of the Bill of Rights which is `fundamental and essential to a fair trial' is made obligatory upon the States by the Fourteenth Amendment." 372 U. S., at 342. And last Term in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, in holding that the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against self-incrimination was made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth, we reiterated the holding of Gideon that the Sixth Amendment's right-to-counsel guarantee is " `a fundamental right, essential to a fair trial,' " and "thus was made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment." 378 U. S., at 6. See also Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U.S. 52. We hold today that the Sixth Amendment's right of an accused to confront the witnesses against him is likewise a fundamental right and is made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.
There are few subjects, perhaps, upon which this Court and other courts have been more nearly unanimous than in their expressions of belief that the right of confrontation and cross-examination is an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country's constitutional goal. Indeed, we have expressly declared that to deprive an accused of the right to cross-examine the witnesses against him is a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law. In In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, this Court said:
And earlier this Term in Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466, 472-473, we held:
Compare Willner v. Committee on Character & Fitness, 373 U.S. 96, 103-104.
II.
Under this Court's prior decisions, the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of confrontation and cross-examination was unquestionably denied petitioner in this case. As has been pointed out, a major reason underlying the
Reversed and remanded.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring in the result.
I agree that in the circumstances the admission of the statement in question deprived the petitioner of a right of "confrontation" assured by the Fourteenth Amendment. I cannot subscribe, however, to the constitutional reasoning of the Court.
The Court holds that the right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment in federal criminal trials is carried into state criminal cases by the Fourteenth Amendment. This is another step in the onward march of the long-since discredited "incorporation" doctrine (see, e. g., Fairman, Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights? The Original Understanding, 2 Stan. L. Rev. 5 (1949); Frankfurter, Memorandum on "Incorporation" of the Bill of Rights Into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 746 (1965)), which for some reason that I have not yet been able to fathom has come into the sunlight in recent years. See, e. g., Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643; Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23; Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1.
For me this state judgment must be reversed because a right of confrontation is "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 325, reflected in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment independently of the Sixth.
While either of these constitutional approaches brings one to the same end result in this particular case, there is a basic difference between the two in the kind of future constitutional development they portend. The concept of Fourteenth Amendment due process embodied in Palko
It is too often forgotten in these times that the American federal system is itself constitutionally ordained, that it embodies values profoundly making for lasting liberties in this country, and that its legitimate requirements demand continuing solid recognition in all phases of the work of this Court. The "incorporation" doctrines, whether full blown or selective, are both historically and constitutionally unsound and incompatible with the maintenance of our federal system on even course.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring in the result.
I join in the judgment reversing this conviction, for the reason that the petitioner was denied the opportunity to cross-examine, through counsel, the chief witness for the prosecution. But I do not join in the Court's pronouncement which makes "the Sixth Amendment's right of an accused to confront the witnesses against him . . . obligatory
The right of defense counsel in a criminal case to cross-examine the prosecutor's living witnesses is "[o]ne of the fundamental guarantees of life and liberty,"
Here that right was completely denied. Therefore, as the Court correctly points out, we need not consider the case which could be presented if Phillips' statement had been taken at a hearing at which the petitioner's counsel was given a full opportunity to cross-examine. See West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258.
MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG, concurring.
I agree with the holding of the Court that "the Sixth Amendment's right of an accused to confront the witnesses against him is . . . a fundamental right and is made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment." Ante, at 403. I therefore join in the opinion and judgment of the Court. My Brother HARLAN, while agreeing with the result reached by the Court, deplores the Court's
I need not recapitulate the arguments for or against incorporation whether "total" or "selective." They have been set forth adequately elsewhere.
With all deference to my Brother HARLAN, I cannot agree that this process has "come into the sunlight in recent years." Ante, at 408. Rather, I believe that it has its origins at least as far back as Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 99, where the Court stated that "it is possible that some of the personal rights safeguarded by the first eight Amendments against National action may also be safeguarded against state action, because a denial of them would be a denial of due process of law. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226." This passage and the authority cited make clear that what is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment are "rights," which apply in every case, not solely in those cases where it seems "fair" to a majority of the Court to afford the protection. Later cases reaffirm that the process of "absorption" is one of extending "rights." See Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23; Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, and cases cited by MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN in his dissenting opinion in Cohen v. Hurley, supra, at 156. I agree with these decisions, as is apparent from my votes in
Furthermore, I do not agree with my Brother HARLAN that once a provision of the Bill of Rights has been held applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, it does not apply to the States in full strength. Such a view would have the Fourteenth Amendment apply to the States "only a `watered-down, subjective version of the individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights.' " Malloy v. Hogan, supra, at 10-11. It would allow the States greater latitude than the Federal Government to abridge concededly fundamental liberties protected by the Constitution. While I quite agree with Mr. Justice Brandeis that "[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a . . . State may . . . serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments," New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 280, 311 (dissenting opinion), I do not believe that this includes the power to experiment with the fundamental liberties of citizens safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. My Brother HARLAN'S view would also require this Court to make the extremely subjective and excessively discretionary determination as to whether a practice, forbidden the Federal Government by a fundamental constitutional guarantee, is, as viewed in the factual circumstances surrounding each individual case, sufficiently repugnant to the notion of due process as to be forbidden the States.
Finally, I do not see that my Brother HARLAN'S view would further any legitimate interests of federalism. It would require this Court to intervene in the state judicial process with considerable lack of predictability and with
I adhere to and support the process of absorption by means of which the Court holds that certain fundamental guarantees of the Bill of Rights are made obligatory on the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Although, as this case illustrates, there are differences among members of the Court as to the theory by which the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental liberties of individual citizens, it is noteworthy that there is a large area of agreement, both here and in other cases, that certain basic rights are fundamental—not to be denied the individual by either the state or federal governments under the Constitution. See, e. g., Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296; NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449; Gideon v. Wainwright, supra; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra; Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 466.
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