Confrontation Clause

“ While it may readily be conceded that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, it is quite a different thing to suggest that the overlap is complete and that the Confrontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of hearsay and their exceptions as they existed historically at common law. Our decisions have never established such a congruence; indeed, we have more than once found a violation of confrontation values even though the statements in issue were admitted under an arguably recognized hearsay exception. ”

“ Every extension of military jurisdiction is an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the civil courts, and, more important, acts as a deprivation of the right to jury trial and of other treasured constitutional protections. Having run up against the steadfast bulwark of the Bill of Rights, the Necessary and Proper Clause cannot extend the scope of Clause 14. ”

“ If every person residing or being in either portion of the state should be accorded the equal protection of the laws prevailing there, he could not justly complain of a violation of the clause referred to. ”

“ It is easy to perceive the class of cases, for which this provision was made; for example, when disputes about boundaries between two states arise. It is easy also to imagine many other cases, apparently within the letter, and yet not within the meaning, and so excluded by a just construction of the clause. ”

“ The only place in the act where the word enemies is used, is in the clause which provides that if it be found by the courts, before which proceedings are instituted, that the property seized belonged to a person engaged in the rebellion or who had given aid or comfort thereto, it should be condemned as enemies' property ”

“ The origin of the Due Process Clause is Chapter 39 of Magna Carta which declares that "No free man shall be taken, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will We proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land." ”

“ The provision necessarily excludes the great body of the State magistrates and of United States Commissioners, possessing general power to arrest and commit for offences against the United States, and is in no respect in conflict with any clause in the treaty, but in harmony with it, and in furtherance of a proper and discreet execution of its stipulations. ”

“ Rep. 1034, 1161,-that a separate defense by one defendant in a joint suit against him and others upon a joint, or a joint and several, cause of action does not create a separate controversy so as to entitle that defendant, if the necessary citizenship exists as to him, to a removal of the cause under the second clause of section 2 in the act of 1875. ”

“ An examination of the federal act in its entirety makes it clear that what the clause quoted from section 1 sought to prohibit was merely the assertion of an exclusive right to use or occupation by force or intimidation or by what would be equivalent in effect to an inclosure. ”

“ Thus placing treaties under all the sanctions of law, I follow the best authorities. The eminent commentator, Mr. Justice Story, in speaking of them, gives them this character. Expounding this very clause, he says:—
“It is therefore indispensable that they should have the obligation and force of a law, that they may be executed by the judicial power, and be obeyed like other laws. ”

“ The change from the drawing in question of the construction of a clause of the Constitution, or of a treaty, statute, or commission, to the claim of a right under the Constitution, treaty, statute, commission, or authority, emphasized the necessity that the right must be specially set up and denied. ”

“ Where any particular word is obscure, or of doubtful meaning, taken by itself, its obscurity or doubt may be removed by reference to associated words; and the meaning of a term may be enlarged or restrained by reference to the object of the whole clause in which it is used.
'Looking at the clause in which the terms 'compact' or 'agreement' appear, it is evident that the prohibition is directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States. ”

“ Thus the necessity of examining men upon oath in their own cause will be entirely taken away; and, as the clause will then stand, there will remain no suspicion of injustice, or oppression, because none can be practised without the concurrence of many persons of different interests. ”

“ In the first place, there was no necessity for such a provision, for either form of security taken under the first clause would necessarily have precedence over a subsequent security upon the same subject-matter. ”

“ An order denying a motion to dismiss a civil action on the ground that a contractual forum-selection clause requires that such suit be brought in another jurisdiction is not a decision on the merits that ends the litigation. ”

“ That the stipulation of immunity to enemy goods in the bottoms of one of the parties being neutral does not imply a surrender of the goods of that party being neutral, if found in the vessel of an enemy, is the proposition of the counsel for the Claimant, and he powerfully sustains that proposition by arguments arising from the nature of the two stipulations. The agreement that neutral bottoms shall make neutral goods is, he very justly remarks, a concession made by the belligerent to the neutral. ”

“ By what reasons, then, is the law induced to allow this far-reaching operation to the fact of agreement? Why should the mere consent of the parties be permitted in this manner to stand for a title of right? Are not rights the subject-matter of justice, and is justice a mere matter of convention varying with the wills of men? ”

“ Qualifying clauses are often used in treaties, statutes, and agreements where the meaning would be the same if they were omitted. Article 2 of the Convention of 1889 furnishes an example. It declares that no fugitive shall be surrendered for any offense of a political character. As no crime of that sort it listed, the provision is unnecessary. That clause, like the expression requiring criminality in both countries, is used, not to add or change meaning, but to emphasize and insure adherence to a well known general principle always held applicable in the absence of any such specification. ”

“ We know of no principle upon which a contract can be evoked from a distinct refusal of one party to recognize the rights of the other, and a formal protest against any such rights being granted to him. ”

“ Or a right must have been claimed under the Constitution, or a treaty, or law of, or by virtue of a commission held or authority exercised under, the United States; and the decision must have been against the right so claimed. ”

“ United States, supra. Confusion of thought will result if we fail to mark the distinction between requirements in respect of presence that have their source in the common law, and requirements that have their source, either expressly or by implication, in the Federal Constitution. Confusion will result again if the privilege of presence be identified with the privilege of confrontation, which is limited to the stages of the trial when there are witnesses to be questioned. ”

“ To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defence and general welfare," would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. ”

“ We are of opinion that this clause of section 639 remains, and is complete in itself, furnishing its own peculiar cause of removal, and prescribing, for reasons appropriate to it, the time within which it must be done. One of these reasons is that the prejudice may not exist at the beginning, or the hostile local influence may not become known or developed at an earlier stage of the proceedings. ”

“ The grounds of the discharge in such cases are obvious. The agreement is no longer the one into which the defendant entered. Its identity is changed: another is substituted without his consent; and by a party who had no authority to consent for him. ”

“ The clause referring to cases or controversies of the two kinds last mentioned was placed between clauses that specifically refer to the value of the matter in dispute; so that it may be reasonably inferred that congress intended that a circuit court should take cognizance of a controversy in which the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or of a controversy between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, without regard to the amount involved. ”

“ With the principles of compulsory arbitration I am wholly in accord; with the principle that outlawry of war should follow as the necessary and natural consequence of the substitution of a reign of law for a reign of force I quite agree; and that some tribunal should determine, if need arise, that the agreement has been broken and that there is an "outlaw," is a natural consequence of those principles; and that there may be defence against aggression, if it comes, almost no one will deny. But there, I think, we must stop so far as present agreement is concerned. ”

“ He says, very truly, that the twenty-fifth section of the judicial act is limited by the constitution, and must be construed so as to be confined within those limits; but he adds, that a case can arise under the constitution or a treaty, only when the right is created by the constitution or by a treaty. ”

“ Resolved, That any withdrawal from a treaty recognizing Arbitration, or any refusal to abide the judgment of the accepted tribunal, or any interposition of technicalities to limit the proceedings, is to this extent a disparagement of the tribunal as a substitute for war, and therefore hostile to civilization. ”

“ And certainly, in view of that possibility, any provisions of a document which looks toward force as a last resort of defence should, in my judgment, be drawn with the utmost care to avoid the idea of a possible conflict between the parties to the document on the one hand and an outside State on the other. Outlawry of war and arbitration are things to be agreed upon and not to be compelled against those who are unwilling to agree ”

“ These, then, are the circumstances in which the Court feels that it can, contrary to every principle of American or English common law, [3] go outside the record to conclude that there exists a 'tacit agreement' that these statutes will not be enforced. ”

“ The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not. ”

“ The second point made by the counsel for the defendants, that the sureties are exonerated by the compromise made with the principal without their concurrence, is the same in principle with that which has been considered. ”

“ It lies apparently in this, that the administration of justice is the judicial, while war is the extrajudicial use of the force of the state in the maintenance of right. Force is judicial, when it is applied by or through a tribunal, whose business it is to judge or arbitrate between the parties who are at issue. It is extrajudicial when it is applied by the state directly, without the aid or intervention of any such judge or arbitrator. Judicial force involves trial and adjudication, as a condition precedent to its application; extrajudicial force does not. ”

“ He wages war with the same pertinacity, and indeed in the same spirit, with which a party litigant in full conviction of the right prosecutes his suit in court. His only compromise is to have his rights, real or fancied, fully conceded. ”

“ These provisions furnish the rules by which the manner of setting up the defense is to be governed, and they leave no doubt in our mind that the liberality which they intended to prescribe in the matter requires that the present plea of the statute of limitations, being good in substance, is sufficient in form of statement. ”

“ And the judgment is conclusive as to the title or right of possession, established in the action, upon the party against whom it is rendered, and all persons claiming under him by title accruing after the commencement of the action. Section 35. The principle that no sovereign can be sued without its consent applies equally to foreign sovereigns and to the sovereign of the country in which the suit is brought. The exemption of the sovereign is not less regarded by its own courts than by the courts of other sovereigns. ”

“ And the context of the Constitution, that is, the express prohibition which it contains as to the power of the states to contract with each other except with the consent of Congress, the limitations as to war and armies, obviously intended to prevent any of the states from resorting to force for the redress of any grievance real or imaginary, all harmonize with and give force to this conception of the operation and effect of the right to exert, at the prayer of one state, judicial authority over another. ”

“ It is contended, with great earnestness, that farther proof ought not to have been ordered, and that the goods which have been restored, ought to have been condemned as prize of war. In support of this proposition, the captors, by their counsel, insist that the rights of belligerents would be sacrificed, should a mere bill of lading, consigning the goods to a neutral, unaccompanied by letter of advice or invoice, let in the neutral claimant to farther proof. ”