Devonshire v. United States

KING, Associate Judge:

Today we hold, consistent with every state and federal court that has considered the issue, that a defendant who kills a potential witness, who is expected to give damaging testimony against the killer in some future proceeding, waives the right under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to object to the admission of that witness’s out-of-court statements. We also hold that, under such circumstances, a defendant waives the right to object on hearsay grounds to those statements. See, e.g., United States v. Houlihan, 92 F.3d 1271 (1st Cir.1996), cert. denied, —…