142
Breyer, J., concurring
U. S. 74, 83 (1970) (plurality opinion). Or why should we, like Walter Raleigh's prosecutor, deny a plea to "let my Accuser come face to face," with words (now related to the penal interest exception) such as, "The law presumes, a man will not accuse himself to accuse another"? Trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, 2 How. St. Tr. 19 (1816).
At the same time, the current hearsay-based Confrontation Clause test is arguably too broad. It would make a constitutional issue out of the admission of any relevant hearsay statement, even if that hearsay statement is only tangentially related to the elements in dispute, or was made long before the crime occurred and without relation to the prospect of a future trial. It is not obvious that admission of a business record, which is hearsay because the business was not "regularly conducted," or admission of a scrawled note, "Mary called," dated many months before the crime, violates the defendant's basic constitutional right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Yet one cannot easily fit such evidence within a traditional hearsay exception. Nor can one fit it within this Court's special exception for hearsay with " 'particularized guarantees of trustworthiness' "; and, in any event, it is debatable whether the Sixth Amendment principally protects "trustworthiness," rather than "confrontation." See White, supra, at 363 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); cf. Maryland v. Craig, 497 U. S. 836, 862 (1990) (Scalia, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Confrontation Clause does not guarantee reliable evidence; it guarantees specific trial procedures that were thought to assure reliable evidence, undeniably among which was 'face-to-face' confrontation").
We need not reexamine the current connection between the Confrontation Clause and the hearsay rule in this case, however, because the statements at issue violate the Clause regardless. See ante, at 139. I write separately to point out that the fact that we do not reevaluate the link in this
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