Cite as: 527 U. S. 116 (1999)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
falls within a firmly rooted hearsay exception" or (2) it contains "particularized guarantees of trustworthiness" such that adversarial testing would be expected to add little, if anything, to the statements' reliability. Id., at 66.
Before turning to the dual Roberts inquiries, however, we note that the statements taken from petitioner's brother in the early morning of December 6 were obviously obtained for the purpose of creating evidence that would be useful at a future trial. The analogy to the presentation of ex parte affidavits in the early English proceedings thus brings the Confrontation Clause into play no matter how narrowly its gateway might be read.
IV
The Supreme Court of Virginia held that the admission of Mark Lilly's confession was constitutional primarily because, in its view, it was against Mark's penal interest and because "the statement against penal interest of an unavailable witness is a 'firmly rooted' exception to the hearsay rule in Virginia." 255 Va., at 575, 449 S. E. 2d, at 534. We assume, as we must, that Mark's statements were against his penal interest as a matter of state law, but the question whether the statements fall within a firmly rooted hearsay exception for Confrontation Clause purposes is a question of federal law. Accordingly, it is appropriate to begin our analysis by examining the "firmly rooted" doctrine and the roots of the "against penal interest" exception.
We have allowed the admission of statements falling within a firmly rooted hearsay exception since the Court's recognition in Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237 (1895), that the Framers of the Sixth Amendment "obviously intended to . . . respec[t]" certain unquestionable rules of evidence in drafting the Confrontation Clause. Id., at 243. Justice Brown, writing for the Court in that case, did not question the wisdom of excluding deposition testimony, ex parte affidavits and their equivalents. But he reasoned that an unduly strict and "technical" reading of the Clause would
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