The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment states that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, shall enjoy the right to be . . . confronted with the witnesses against him.” It promotes fair trial by extending to criminal defendants the right to cross-examine witnesses that testify against them. In two lines of decisions the court has fortified this right of confrontation.

In 1968, the court held in Bruton v. United States, 391 US 123 (1968), that a defendant was denied his confrontation right when a non-testifying co-defendant’s confession naming the defendant as a participant in the charged crime was admitted at their joint trial, regardless of the instruction that the jury is not to consider the confession against the non-testifying defendant.