State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent v. Marvin L. Beauchamp, Defendant-Appellant-Petitioner

Summary

The court affirmed the judgment, holding that admitting the victim's dying declarations did not violate the federal or state confrontation guarantees because the exception was deeply rooted in common law at the time of the constitutional founding. It also held that admitting the recanting witnesses' prior inconsistent statements did not violate due process, and that neither plain error nor ineffective assistance warranted relief where the statements were admitted without objection under controlling Wisconsin law. The concurrence would have resolved the emergency-medical-technician statements as nontestimonial and found any error concerning the police officer's testimony harmless, without recognizing a constitutional exception for testimonial dying declarations.