Mr. Franklin is a 54-year-old Black man who, prior to his arrest in this case, had sole custody of his young son. Shortly before his arrest, Mr. Franklin had retired after working nearly two decades at a local hospital and had started his own business. Mr. Franklin was convicted of a firearms possession offense in 2019 after police found a small pistol in the home he shared with his stepmother. 

To prove an essential element of its case—Mr. Franklin’s dominion and control of the firearm—the State introduced a report that had been prepared to assist the court during arraignment to set Mr. Franklin’s bail. But when Mr. Franklin invoked his Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine his accuser at trial, the New York Court of Appeals held that he had no such right—a right he would have enjoyed if only he had been tried in other jurisdictions.

Why is This a Key Case?

RFK Human Rights filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of Mr. Franklin’s petition for certiorari because this case raises a question of profound consequence for bail systems across the country and for the accuracy and fairness of the criminal legal system by extension. Without the safeguard of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause, participants in bail interviews risk their statements or the information gleaned from them being misrecorded or misinterpreted and then used unfairly at trial. This risk disincentivizes good-faith, candid participation in a bail interview, leading to inaccurate and unfair bail determinations, decreased credibility of the criminal legal system, and increased public costs spent on unnecessary pretrial detention. 

November 12, 2024

Amicus brief filed

RFK Human Rights filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of Mr. Franklin’s petition for certiorari.