Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stinging rebuke to the New York Court of Appeals in a case in which the state's highest court had brushed aside a criminal defendant's claim he would have been able to establish his innocence had he not been denied his constitutional right to confront a key witness. In an 8-1 decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, liberal and conservative justices agreed that the Court of Appeals' position that prosecutors were free to introduce hearsay evidence without an opportunity to cross-examine if the defense had created a "misleading impression" violated the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause.