Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/509

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

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

351

Opinion of the Court

course of securing medical treatment.2 The trial court also denied petitioner’s motion for a mistrial based on S. G.’s “presence [and] failure to testify.” App. 14. Petitioner was found guilty by a jury, and the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed his conviction. It held that the trial court operated within the discretion accorded it under state law in ruling that the statements offered by DeVore, Grigsby, and Lewis qualified for the spontaneous declaration exception and in ruling that the statements offered by Reents and Meinzen qualified for the medical examination exception. 198 Ill. App. 3d 641, 648–656, 555 N. E. 2d 1241, 1246–1251 (1990). The court then went on to reject petitioner’s Confrontation Clause 3 challenge, a challenge based principally on language contained in this Court’s decision in Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U. S. 56 (1980). It concluded that our later decision in United States v. Inadi, 475 U. S. 387 (1986), foreclosed any rule requiring that, as a necessary antecedent to the introduction of hearsay testimony, the prosecution must either produce the declarant at trial or show that the declarant is unavailable. The Illinois Supreme Court denied discretionary review, and we granted certiorari, 500 U. S. 904 (1991), limited to the constitutional question whether permitting the challenged testimony violated petitioner’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right.4 2 Illinois Rev. Stat., ch. 38, ¶ 115–13 (1989), provides: “In a prosecution for violation of Section 12–13, 12–14, 12–15 or 12–16 of the ‘Criminal Code of 1961’, statements made by the victim to medical personnel for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment including descriptions of the cause of symptom, pain or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment shall be admitted as an exception to the hearsay rule.” 3 “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to. . . be confronted with the witnesses against him. . . .” U. S. Const., Amdt. 6. 4 We take as a given, therefore, that the testimony properly falls within the relevant hearsay exceptions.