Pitts v. Mississippi (No 24-1149)

In Pitts v. Mississippi (No 24-1149), the Nine summarily reversed a Mississippi Supreme Court decision that effectively ignored the Court's decisions in Coy v. Iowa (1988) and Maryland v. Craig (1990), which require trial courts to make case-specific findings of necessity before precluding a criminal defendant from exercising his Sixth Amendment right to confront child witnesses "face to face."

Jeffrey Pitts was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter, after a trial at which the child was permitted to testify against Pitts from behind a screen. Pitts objected to the screen as a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation, but the trial judge overruled the objection based on a Mississippi state law that gives child witnesses the "right" to testify behind a "screen that ... obscure[s] the child's view of the defendant." On appeal, the Mississippi Supreme Court acknowledged that the trial court had failed to make a case-specific finding that the screen