California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Cromer, 103 Cal.Rptr.2d 23, 15 P.3d 243, 24 Cal.4th 889 (Cal. 2001):
Moreover, just last year in Lilly v. Virginia (1999) 527 U.S. 116, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117, a plurality of the high court addressed another requirement that certain hearsay statements must meet before they may be admitted notwithstanding the confrontation clause: the requirement that the statement have particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. The plurality concluded that a trial court's determination that particularized guarantees of trustworthiness exist should be subject to independent review: "[A]s with other fact-intensive, mixed questions of constitutional law, ... `[independent review is ... necessary ... to maintain control of, and to clarify, the legal principles' governing the factual circumstances necessary to satisfy the protections of the Bill of Rights." (Id. at p. 136, 119 S.Ct. 1887.)
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