Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/505

 502us2$25Z 01-22-99 08:28:07 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 346 (1992)

347

Syllabus (b) Although Roberts contains language that might suggest that the Confrontation Clause generally requires that a declarant be produced at trial or be found unavailable before his out-of-court statement may be admitted into evidence, such an expansive reading was negated by the Court’s decision in Inadi, supra, at 392–400. As Inadi recognized with respect to co-conspirator statements, the evidentiary rationale for admitting testimony regarding such hearsay as spontaneous declarations and statements made in the course of receiving medical care is that such out-of-court declarations are made in contexts that provide substantial guarantees of their trustworthiness. But those same factors that contribute to the statements’ reliability cannot be recaptured by later in-court testimony. A statement that has been offered in a moment of excitement—without the opportunity to reflect on the consequences of one’s exclamation—may justifiably carry more weight with a trier of fact than a similar statement offered in the relative calm of a courtroom. Similarly, a statement made in the course of procuring medical services, where the declarant knows that a false statement may cause misdiagnosis or mistreatment, carries special guarantees of credibility that a trier of fact may not think replicated by courtroom testimony. Where proffered hearsay has sufficient guarantees of reliability to come within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule, the Confrontation Clause is satisfied. Establishing a generally applicable unavailability rule would have few practical benefits while imposing pointless litigation costs. Pp. 353–357. (c) White misplaces his reliance on Coy v. Iowa, 487 U. S. 1012, and Maryland v. Craig, 497 U. S. 836, from which he draws a general rule that hearsay testimony offered by a child should be permitted only upon a showing of necessity—i. e., in cases where necessary to protect the child’s physical and psychological well-being. Those cases involved only the question of what in-court procedures are constitutionally required to guarantee a defendant’s confrontation rights once a child witness is testifying, and there is no basis for importing their “necessity requirement” into the much different context of out-of-court declarations admitted under established exceptions to the hearsay rule. Pp. 357–358. 198 Ill. App. 3d 641, 555 N. E. 2d 1241, affirmed. Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined, and in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined except for the discussion rejecting the United States’ proposed reading of the “witness against” Confrontation Clause phrase. Thomas, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 358.