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''Chambers v. Mississippi'', , was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state may not enforce its rules of evidence, such as rules excluding hearsay, in a fashion that disallows a criminal defendant from presenting reliable exculpatory evidence and thus denies the defendant a fair trial. ==Background== Leon Chambers, of Woodville, Mississippi, was charged by the State of Mississippi with murdering Police Officer Aaron Liberty by shooting him. Chambers pleaded not guilty and insisted throughout the proceedings that he was not the shooter. Prior to the trial, another Woodville man, Gable McDonald, told at least three people that he, not Chambers, had shot Liberty and gave a sworn confession. However, at a preliminary hearing in the case, McDonald disavowed his confession. At Chambers' jury trial, the defense called McDonald as a witness and put his confession into evidence. On cross-examination, the prosecution presented evidence that McDonald had withdrawn and disavowed the confession. The defense then asked for permission to examine McDonald as an adverse witness. The court denied permission, basing its ruling upon Mississippi's common-law "voucher" rule, which prohibits the party that called a witness to the stand from impeaching his own witness. The defense then sought to present testimony from three other witnesses, all of whom would have testified that McDonald told them soon after the shooting that he and not Chambers had shot Officer Liberty. The trial judge found that this testimony would constitute inadmissible hearsay and excluded it. The jury found Chambers guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed the conviction with one Justice dissenting.〔''Chambers v. State'', 252 So. 2d 217 (Miss. 1971) (per curiam).〕 Chambers then asked the United States Supreme Court to review his claim that the trial court's evidentiary rulings deprived him of a fair trial, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. While Chambers' petition for certiorari was pending, Circuit Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. released Chambers on bail.〔''Chambers v. Mississippi'', (Powell, J., Circuit Justice, in chambers) (in-chambers opinion denying State's application to revoke prior unpublished order admitting Chambers to bail).〕 The Court granted certiorari.〔.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chambers v. Mississippi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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