Washington v. Texas

Washington v. Texas
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 15–16, 1967 Decided June 12, 1967
Full case name	Jackie Washington v. Texas
Citations	388 U.S. 14 (more) 87 S. Ct. 1920; 18 L. Ed. 2d 1019; 1967 U.S. LEXIS 1083
Case history
Prior	Fuller v. State, 397 S.W.2d 434 (Tex. Crim. App. 1966); Washington v. State, 400 S.W.2d 756 (Tex. Crim. App. 1966); cert. granted, 385 U.S. 812 (1966).
Subsequent	Washington v. State, 417 S.W.2d 278 (Tex. Crim. App. 1967)
Holding
The Compulsory Process Clause is incorporated against the states. Under that Clause, the Texas law unconstitutionally bars defendants from obtaining witnesses in their favor because it blocks a "relevant and material" witness from testifying for the defense.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Abe Fortas
Case opinions
Majority	Warren, joined by Black, Douglas, Clark, Brennan, Stewart, White, Fortas
Concurrence	Harlan
Laws applied
Compulsory Process Clause

Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14 (1967), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (guaranteeing the right of a criminal defendant to force the attendance of witnesses for their side) is applicable in state courts as well as federal courts.^[1] Jackie Washington had attempted to call his co-defendant as a witness, but was blocked by Texas courts because state law prevented co-defendants from testifying for each other, under the theory that they would be likely to lie for each other on the stand.

The Supreme Court reasoned that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made the right to be able to compel defense witnesses to testify necessary for a defendant's "due process" rights to fair proceedings, which applies to the states. Only Justice John Marshall Harlan II parted from the Court's "due process" focus, though he agreed with the outcome, as he regularly did in cases involving whether to apply federal rights to state courts.

The impact of Washington was narrowed by a later case, Taylor v. Illinois (1988),^[2] in which the Court said that "countervailing public interests", like the need to move through cases quickly, could be balanced against a defendant's right to present witnesses. In Taylor, the Supreme Court upheld a judge's order blocking defense witnesses from testifying due to the defense attorney's deliberate failure to disclose evidence to prosecutors earlier in the trial. The defense attorney's actions resulted in a lengthy delay in the proceedings which the trial judge felt was unjustified. Legal scholars have seen this new grant of discretion to trial judges as a change to relying on "efficient justice", a more limited vision of trial rights than the "right to present a defense" created in Washington.^[3]