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A term to remember.

Article Excerpt
The Supreme Court's new term, which began in October, will be one to remember. Newly appointed Chief Justice John Roberts began his tenure, and a second new justice--perhaps Samuel Alito--may join the Court this year. The term also features many important cases on a range of issues: criminal law and procedure, abortion rights, federalism, and freedom of speech.

Criminal law and procedure

For lawyers who handle criminal trials, few Supreme Court decisions have been more momentous than Crawford v. Washington, in which the Court overruled its own earlier decisions to hold that introducing testimony against a defendant who has no opportunity to cross-examine a witness violates the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. (1) The Crawford decision changed the law of evidence for every criminal case in every court in the country. In effect, the justices said courts can no longer use "testimonial" statements simply because a witness is unavailable.

In the year and a half since the Court decided Crawford, lower courts have struggled to define what evidence is "testimonial." In a pair of cases this term, the Court will take up that question for the first time. In Davis v. Washington, the Court will consider whether statements made during a 911 emergency call are testimonial. (2) In Hammon v. Indiana, it will decide whether a victim's oral statements to a police officer constitute this type of evidence. (3) These cases could provide urgently needed clarification and affect countless criminal cases.

The Court will also take up several important Fourth Amendment cases. In Georgia v. Randolph, the question is whether one occupant of...