Testimony by `Anonymous’ Witnesses Deprived Defendant of Confrontation Right

The government’s showing of a threat to the safety of confidential informers was insufficiently specific to sustain a trial’s judge decision to allow the informers to testify without disclosing their true names to defense counsel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit decided Aug. 1. (United States v. Gutierrez de Lopez, 2014 BL 214318, 10th Cir., No. 13-2141)

The court set out, for the first time, a legal framework for determining when the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause permits testimony by an “anonymous witness.”

In a 1973 case, the court upheld a trial judge’s refusal to allow ...