Washington v. Texas (1967) is a US Supreme Court case about the right of
criminal defendants to have witnesses testify on their behalf. The Court
decided that the Compulsory Process Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the
Constitution applied in state courts as well as federal courts. At his
trial Jackie Washington had attempted to call his co-defendant as a
witness but was blocked because state law prevented co-defendants from
testifying for each other, under the theory that they might lie for each
other on the stand. The Supreme Court reasoned that the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment gives defendants the right to fair
proceedings, including the right to compel defense witnesses to testify.
In previous cases, the Supreme Court had ruled that the Fourteenth
Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War, makes many federal
guarantees in the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. The impact of
Washington was narrowed by a later case, Taylor v. Illinois (1988), in
which the Court said that "countervailing public interests" could be
balanced against a defendant's right to present witnesses.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_v._Texas>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
737:
Muslim conquest of Transoxiana: Turgesh tribes attacked the
exposed Umayyad baggage train, which had been sent ahead of the main
force, and captured it.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Baggage>
1551:
Sue Takafusa, a military leader for the Ōuchi clan in western
Japan, led a coup against daimyo Ōuchi Yoshitaka, leading to the
latter's forced suicide.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tainei-ji_incident>
1939:
World War II: General Władysław Sikorski became Prime
Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82adys%C5%82aw_Sikorski>
1975:
The AH-64 Apache, the primary attack helicopter for a number of
countries, made its first flight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_AH-64_Apache>
2005:
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published controversial
editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad, sparking protests across the
Muslim world by many who viewed them as Islamophobic and blasphemous.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bombast:
1. (archaic) Cotton, or cotton wool.
2. (archaic) Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for
garments; stuffing, padding.
3. (figuratively) High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the
occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bombast>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
When you see anyone complaining of such and such a person's ill-
nature and bad temper, know that the complainant is bad-tempered,
forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person, because he alone
is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing towards the bad-tempered and
ill-natured.
--Rumi
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rumi>