Merritt v. People

We granted certiorari to determine whether, under the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution, the district court correctly refused to allow cross-examination of the prosecution’s two essential witnesses concerning the fact that the court, at the prosecutor’s request, had granted immunity to the witnesses requiring them to testify after each had asserted his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify. The court of appeals stated that “to allow such cross-examination would, in our view, have been proper,” but it affirmed the trial court because it deemed the evidence to have…