Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/514

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WHITE v. ILLINOIS Opinion of the Court

the statements’ reliability cannot be recaptured even 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 the 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. They are thus materially different from the statements at issue in Roberts, where the out-ofcourt statements sought to be introduced were themselves made in the course of a judicial proceeding, and where there was consequently no threat of lost evidentiary value if the out-of-court statements were replaced with live testimony. The preference for live testimony in the case of statements like those offered in Roberts is because of the importance of cross-examination, “the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Green, 399 U. S., at 158. Thus courts have adopted the general rule prohibiting the receipt of hearsay evidence. But where proffered hearsay has sufficient guarantees of reliability to come within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule, the Confrontation Clause is satisfied. We therefore think it clear that the out-of-court statements admitted in this case had substantial probative value, value that could not be duplicated simply by the declarant later testifying in court. To exclude such probative statements under the strictures of the Confrontation Clause would be the height of wrongheadedness, given that the Confrontation Clause has as a basic purpose the promotion of the for statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment is similarly recognized in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(4), and is equally widely accepted among the States. See Brief for State of California et al. as Amici Curiae 31–32, n. 13 (same).