Pointer v. Texas - Further Readings

Petitioner
Bob Granville Pointer
Respondent
State of Texas
Petitioner's Claim
That the use of transcribed testimony in a criminal prosecution deprived thedefendant of his Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Orville A. Harlan
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Gilbert J. Pena
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C.Clark, William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg, John Marshall Harlan II, PotterStewart, Earl Warren, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
None
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
5 April 1965
Decision
Reversed Pointer's conviction.
Significance
Although in 1965 most states recognized the right of confrontation guaranteedin federal trials by the Sixth Amendment, Texas did not. Pointer emphasized that the standard for upholding this right must be uniform throughoutthe states.
Bob Granville Pointer and an accomplice were arrested in Texas and charged with robbing Kenneth W. Phillips of $375. Pointer and his accomplice were thentaken before a state judge for a preliminary hearing. At the hearing, an assistant district attorney examined witnesses, but neither of the accused men was represented by a lawyer. As the chief witness against them, Phillips gave his version of events, identifying Pointer as the one who had robbed him at gunpoint. Although Pointer's accomplice tried to cross-examined Phillips, Pointer did not. Pointer was subsequently indicted on robbery charges
Before the trial began, Phillips moved to California. After submitting evidence that Phillips did not intend to return to Texas, the prosecution offered the transcript of his testimony at the preliminary hearing as evidence againstPointer. Pointer was by this time represented by counsel, but although his lawyer objected to the admission of the transcript, the trial judge overruledhim. Pointer was convicted of armed robbery. After his appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals failed, he took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), the Supreme Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to counsel in criminal cases applicable in state trials. The issue in Pointer was whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment also made the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment applicable to the states. The Confrontation Clause guarantees that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Although the right to confront one's accusers in a criminal prosecution had long been recognized by the laws of most states, the circumstances in Pointer made it clear that there was a lack of uniformity in the state standards for satisfying this right.
Supreme Court Holds that States Must Allow Criminal Defendants to Confrontand Cross-Examine Witnesses Against Them
Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Black stated unequivocally that statesmust permit criminal defendants to confront and cross-examine witnesses against them in all cases where the federal standard for observing the Confrontation Clause applies:

[T]he right of cross-examination is included in the right of an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against him . . . There are few subjects . . . upon which this Court and other courts have been more nearly unanimous than in their expressions of belief that the right of confrontation and cross-examination is an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country's constitutional goal. Indeed, we have expressly declared that to deprive an accused of the right to cross-examine the witnesses against him is a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law.

In other words, the right of the accused to confront his accusers is groundedin the necessity for cross-examination. And because cross-examination of witnesses requires some legal skill, criminal defendants must be represented bycounsel. The Court did recognize that there are some practical limitations onthis rule: where a key witness has died, for example, admission of his or her earlier testimony must be admitted at trial. Following Pointer, however, the exceptions to the rule are the same both in federal and state criminal prosecutions.
Pointer, with its unanimous decision, proved to be one of the least controversial cases in the so-called due process revolution of the 1940s through the 1960s. Led by Justice Black, this "revolution" succeeded in making mostof the guarantees of the Bill of Rights applicable at the state level through the Fourteenth Amendment. Both civil rights and criminal procedure were radically altered as a result of this expansion of individual liberties, givingrise to a backlash. Pointer, however, was never challenged.
Related Cases

• Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319 (1937).
  
• Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).
  
• Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
  
• Malloy v. Hogan, 678 U.S. 1 (1964).