62
O'Connor, J., dissenting
tana Supreme Court held that keeping intoxication evidence away from the jury, where such evidence was relevant to establishment of the requisite mental state, violated the due process right to present a defense, 272 Mont. 114, 123, 900 P. 2d 260, 265 (1995), and that the instruction pursuant to § 45-2-203 was not harmless error, id., at 124, 900 P. 2d, at 266. In rejecting the Montana Supreme Court's conclusion, the plurality emphasizes that "any number of familiar and unquestionably constitutional evidentiary rules" permit exclusion of relevant evidence. Ante, at 42. It is true that a defendant does not enjoy an absolute right to present evidence relevant to his defense. See Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 683, 690-691 (1986). But none of the "familiar" evidentiary rules operates as Montana's does. The Montana statute places a blanket exclusion on a category of evidence that would allow the accused to negate the offense's mental-state element. In so doing, it frees the prosecution, in the face of such evidence, from having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant nevertheless possessed the required mental state. In my view, this combination of effects violates due process.
The proposition that due process requires a fair opportunity to present a defense in a criminal prosecution is not new. See id., at 690; California v. Trombetta, 467 U. S. 479, 485 (1984). In Chambers, the defendant had been prevented from cross-examining a witness and from presenting witnesses on his own behalf by operation of Mississippi's "voucher" and hearsay rules. The Court held that the application of these evidentiary rules deprived the defendant of a fair trial. "[W]here constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice." 410 U. S., at 302. The plurality's characterization of Chambers as "case-specific error correction," ante, at 52, cannot diminish its force as a prohibition on enforcement of state evidentiary rules that lead, without sufficient justification, to
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