Washington ( CNN ) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a Michigan man 's murder conviction that had been overturned because the victim 's dying words were used in the trial . The justices concluded the mortally wounded man 's statements to police were `` non-testimonial '' and therefore admissible in court . The 6-2 decision found police were confronted with an unresolved situation at the crime scene involving an at-large suspect . That gave officers latitude to question Anthony Covington , the bleeding victim , for information . `` There was an ongoing emergency here where an armed shooter , whose motive for and location after the shooting were unknown , had mortally wounded Covington within a few blocks and a few minutes of the location where police found Covington , '' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority . In April 2001 , police in Detroit found Covington at a gas station with a gunshot wound to the abdomen , in great pain , and having a hard time speaking . When asked `` what had happened , who had shot him , and where the shooting had occurred , '' Covington replied that he was shot outside a nearby home , had driven himself to the gas station and identified the assailant as Richard `` Rick '' Bryant . After the five- to 10-minute conversation , the victim was taken to a hospital , where he soon died . Police used the statements to go to Bryant 's home , where they found the victim 's blood and identification , along with a spent bullet and a bullet hole . Bryant was arrested and later convicted of second-degree murder and felony possession of a firearm . He appealed , saying the dead man 's statements violated the Constitution 's confrontation clause , which gives defendants the right to cross-examine `` testimonial '' evidence against them , including eyewitness statements . At issue was whether Covington 's remarks represented such testimony or were `` excited utterances '' that helped police assess a crime emergency . Sotomayor said police 's initial inquiries about what happened `` were the exact type of questions necessary to allow police to assess the situation , the threat to their own safety , and possible danger to the potential victim . '' She added that since `` the situation was fluid '' with different officers arriving at different times and each asking what happened , police `` did not conduct a structured interrogation , '' which would normally be barred from trial without the presence of the person who had been questioned . The high court in 2006 gave greater protection to defendants over the use of hearsay testimony in criminal cases . The justices said cross-examination is required to admit prior testimonial statements of witnesses when those statements have since become unavailable . That case involved a spouse who refused to testify in court about a stabbing after earlier telling police what had happened . The Bryant case involved the so-called `` dying declaration '' exception , and whether that should be applied in this case . Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in her dissent that the question was never raised in the original appeal , so could not be resolved by the court . In a separate , tartly worded dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia , he blasted the majority for `` judicial mischief . '' `` Today 's tale -- a story of five officers conducting successive examinations of a dying man with the primary purpose , not of obtaining and preserving his testimony regarding his killer , but of protecting him , them , and others from a murderer somewhere on the loose -- is so transparently false that professing to believe it demeans this institution , '' he wrote . `` In its vain attempt to make the incredible plausible , however -- or perhaps as an intended second goal -- today 's opinion distorts our Confrontation Clause jurisprudence and leaves it in a shambles . Instead of clarifying the law , the court makes itself the obfuscator of last resort . '' He warned the court was offering a `` hollow constitutional guarantee , '' and concluded : `` For all I know , Bryant has received his just deserts . But he surely has not received them pursuant to the procedures that our Constitution requires . And what has been taken away from him has been taken away from us all . ''
The Court 's ruling centers on the use of the slain victim 's words in the sentence . The murder conviction had been overturned because the dying words were used . In 6 - 2 ruling , the Court says that the words were admissible .