Marshall v. State

RAKER, Judge.

The issue we must decide in this case is whether the trial judge unduly restricted the cross-examination of the State’s key witness regarding a plea and pending sentence in an unrelated criminal case, where the witness’s testimony against the defendant was a requirement of the witness’s plea. We shall hold that the limitation of the cross-examination was a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and that the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

I

On May 30, 1993,…