Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Drug guy's phone call to undercover officer not testimonial hearsay

In U.S. v. Ayala, Chief Judge Jones of the W.D. Va. held that the Confrontation Clause as construed by the Supreme Court in the Crawford case does not apply to bar the admissibility of the out-of-court statement about the defendant made by some drug guy on the cell phone who thought he was talking to another guy wanting to buy drugs who was actually an undercover police officer.

It does seem that a statement of this kind is not too much like testimony in court, or so one would hope.

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