Pitts v. Mississippi (Confrontation Clause)

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The United States Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court upholding the use of a physical screen that prevented a four-year-old child witness from seeing the defendant during trial. Mississippi law mandates the use of such screens for child witnesses in abuse cases. Relying on that statute, the trial court permitted the screen without taking evidence or making any case-specific finding that the arrangement was necessary to protect the witness.

On review, the Mississippi Supreme Court concluded that the statute, combined with state constitutional victims’ rights provisions, distinguished the case from Coy v. Iowa and Maryland v. Craig, which require individualized findings before limiting face-to-face confrontation. The dissent argued that those precedents squarely controlled and that the trial court failed to comply with their requirements.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that Coy and Craig govern: a deviation from face-to-face confrontation is permissible only after the trial court hears evidence and finds that testifying in the defendant’s presence would cause trauma that impairs the child’s ability to communicate. The mandatory nature of Mississippi’s statute could not substitute for those constitutional findings, and the trial court’s reliance on the statute alone was insufficient.

The Court remanded for consideration of whether the Confrontation Clause violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.