Chambers v. Mississippi

Chambers v. Mississippi
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 15, 1972 Decided February 21, 1973
Full case name	Leon Chambers v. State of Mississippi
Docket no.	71-5908
Citations	410 U.S. 284 (more) 93 S. Ct. 1038. 35 L. Ed. 2d 297
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Chambers v. State, 252 So. 2d 217 (Miss. 1971) (per curiam); bail granted, 405 U.S. 1205 (1972); cert. granted, 405 U.S. 987 (1972).
Holding
A state may not enforce its rules of evidence in a criminal trial so as to disallow the defendant the right to present reliable exculpatory evidence and thereby deny the defendant a fair trial.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William O. Douglas · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Rehnquist
Case opinions
Majority	Powell, joined by Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun
Concurrence	White
Dissent	Rehnquist
Laws applied
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973), 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.