Justices Avoid Confrontation Case Over Gorsuch, Sotomayor Dissent (1)

The U.S. Supreme Court chose not to hear a case on the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause Nov. 19, turning away an appeal from Alabama but sparking a noteworthy dissent in the process.

In a pairing not seen yet this term, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court’s refusal to hear the case. This was an area of the law in which Gorsuch’s predecessor, the late Antonin Scalia, also sided with criminal defendants.

The petition from Vanessa Stuart asked the court to apply its 2011 decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, which dealt with introducing forensic ...