6th Amendment Violation Confrontation Clause.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Odonis D. Parker

Case No.: 20-1231

Officials: SYKES, Chief Judge, and FLAUM, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 6th Amendment Violation Confrontation Clause

Selina Schutt, her three young children, and her boyfriend, Jamayl Wash, were driving into her apartment complex in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when shots rang out. Wash's Hyundai Sonata was hit with a barrage of bullets, including one that grazed the top of his scalp. Schutt saw her recently estranged ex-boyfriend, Odonis Parker, shooting from the side of the building. She grabbed her children, ran, and called 911 reporting that her ex-boyfriend, "Odonis Parker," had shot up a car and was trying to shoot her friend.

The court later sentenced Parker to 114 months in prison followed by a two-year term of supervised release. Parker appealed, arguing that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment rights under the Confrontation Clause when it prohibited him from cross-examining the government witnesses about the lack of DNA evidence tying him to the firearm. The government argues that Parker failed to raise the Confrontation Clause objection at trial and thus waived it, making it subject only to plain error review. Parker asserts that although "the specific words 'confrontation clause' were not used in the district court," the substance of the argument was properly raised. Parker Reply Brief at 5. We need not resolve this issue, because even if we assume that Parker properly preserved the argument, and even if we were to determine that the district court erred by disallowing the proposed cross examination, any error would have been harmless.

Parker argues that the crux of his strategy was to cast reasonable doubt that...