University of Tennessee law pro­fes­sor Penny White exam­ines how two recent Supreme Court rul­ings should impact a cap­i­tal defen­dan­t’s right to con­front wit­ness­es dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing phase of his death penal­ty tri­al. Prof. White argues that a defen­dan­t’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to con­front actu­al wit­ness­es tes­ti­fy­ing against him dur­ing the guilt phase of his tri­al (rather than hav­ing such evi­dence admit­ted through hearsay or oth­er non-first per­son evi­dence), should be extend­ed to cap­i­tal defen­dants dur­ing the penal­ty phase of their cas­es. The right of con­fronta­tion was strength­ened by the Supreme Court’s 2004 rul­ing in Crawford v. Washington and its 2006 rul­ing in Davis v. Washington. 

In her arti­cle — ​“He Said,” ​“She Said,” and Issues of Life and Death: The Right to Confrontation at Capital Sentencing Proceedings — White observes, ​“In mod­ern times in dozens of cas­es, the sen­tenc­ing of inno­cent peo­ple to death clear­ly demon­strates the effects of allow­ing uncon­front­ed evi­dence to be con­sid­ered in cap­i­tal cas­es.… Neither the Constitution’s text, its his­to­ry, nor inter­pre­tive prece­dent pro­vide a rea­son­able basis for deny­ing a per­son fac­ing death the right to con­front the wit­ness­es at a cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ing. On the con­trary, the text, the his­to­ry, and a half-cen­tu­ry of con­sti­tu­tion­al devel­op­ment man­date that the Sixth Amendment right to con­fronta­tion be giv­en full effect in the most sig­nif­i­cant of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, the cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing pro­ceed­ing.”
(P. White, “ ​‘He Said,’ ​‘She Said,’ and Issues of Life and Death: The Right to Confrontation at Capital Sentencing Proceedings,” 19 Regent University Law Review 387 (2007)). See Law Reviews and Arbitrariness.

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