Barack Obama, Sir Walter Raleigh and Forensics (or The 2008 Election and the Future of the Right of Confrontation)

Jules Epstein, Widener Law School, Delaware

Abstract

For the Court in Crawford v. Washington, the historic roots of the right of Confrontation were a rejection of such procedures, and a mandate that “testimonial” hearsay be inadmissible unless the original declarant was now in court or was now unavailable to testify and there had been the opportunity for cross-examination when the statement was made. The relevance of Crawford (and Raleigh’s travails) to forensics can be found in the 2009 Melendez-Diaz decision ...

What does this, and Sir Walter Raleigh, have to do with Barack Obama?