confrontation

con·fron·ta·tion

C0564800 (kŏn′frŭn-tā′shən)n.1. The act of confronting or the state of being confronted, especially a meeting face to face.2. a. A conflict involving armed forces: a nuclear confrontation.b. Discord or a clash of opinions and ideas: an age of ideological confrontation.3. A focused comparison: an essay that brought elements of biography, autobiography, and general European history into powerful, meaningful confrontation.

con′fron·ta′tion·al adj.con′fron·ta′tion·ist n.

confrontation

(ˌkɒnfrʌnˈteɪʃən) or archaic

confrontment

n1. the act or an instance of confronting2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a situation of mutual hostility between two powers or nations without open warfare3. a state of conflict between two antagonistic forces, creeds, or ideas etc ˌconfronˈtational adj

con•fron•ta•tion

(ˌkɒn frənˈteɪ ʃən, -frʌn-)

n. 1. an act of confronting. 2. the state of being confronted. 3. a meeting of persons face to face. 4. an open conflict of opposing ideas, forces, etc. [1625–35]

Confrontation

beard the lion in his den To confront face-to-face; to oppose another boldly and openly on his turf; to challenge. W. S. Gilbert used this expression in Iolanthe (1882).

bell the cat To dare to confront danger at its source, despite overwhelming odds. The allusion is to a fable recounted in Langland’s Piers Plowman (1377). A group of mice continually harassed by a certain cat met to decide what to do about the problem. One old mouse suggested that a bell hung around the cat’s neck would serve to warn the mice of the feline’s approach. This idea was greeted with much enthusiasm until a bright young mouse brought up the question, “But who will bell the cat?”

come to grips with To face up to a problematic situation and deal or cope with it; to tackle a problem head-on in an attempt to get it under control; to grapple or struggle with a dilemma or difficulty. The idea of confronting an opposing force suggests that the expression may derive from a sport such as wrestling. This theory is highly conjectural, however, because the many meanings and uses of grip allow for a variety of possible explanations.

face the music To confront stoically the consequences of one’s deeds; to face up to an unpleasant or trying experience. This expression may have originated in the theater, where actors and actresses nervously awaited their cues to come onstage and thus “face the music” in the pit. Another origin may lie in the military practice of mustering soldiers in full battle regalia for inspection, often at the call of a bugle. Figuratively, this term refers to a personal confrontation for which one must gather courage.

in the teeth of In direct opposition to; straight against, without a buffer; confronting, face to face; in defiance or in spite of. This expression of unknown origin dates from the 13th century. The oldest examples of its use describe direct confrontation between two forces:

A Hector, who no less desires to meet them in the teeth. (Arthur Hall, tr., Ten Books of Homer’s Iliad, 1581)

Since the 18th century, in the teeth of has broadened in its applicability to include confrontations of a less physical or tangible nature, such as between contradictory ideas.

A judge has no right to enter judgement in the teeth of the finding of a jury. (Law Times, June 13, 1885)

The expression can also mean ‘in the face or presence of.’

They were in fact in the very teeth of starvation. (Charles Lamb, Elia, 1825)

showdown A decisive confrontation between opposing parties to settle a dispute; a revelation of facts and other information, usually in hopes of resolving an issue. In poker, a showdown is the laying down of one’s cards, face up, to determine the winner of that hand. Showdown has assumed its figurative implications by extension.

The opening game of the showdown Yankees-Red Sox series … (AP wire story, September 24, 1949)

square off To take on a defensive stance; to gird up one’s loins. This phrase originated and is still used as a boxing term for the initial positions that boxers assume at the beginning of a round. The expression maintains widespread figurative use.

The bow appeared to be rearing up to square off at the midday sun. (J. H. Beadle, Undeveloped West, 1873)

take the bull by the horns To attack a problem head-on; to confront without fear or evasiveness; to face up to danger, difficulty or unpleasantness without shrinking. In bullfighting, a matador grasps the horns of a bull about to toss him. Jonathan Swift used the expression in 1711:

To engage with France, was to take a bull by the horns. (Conduct of Allies)

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	confrontation - a bold challenge challenge - a call to engage in a contest or fight
	2.	confrontation - discord resulting from a clash of ideas or opinionsdissension, discord - disagreement among those expected to cooperate
	3.	confrontation - a hostile disagreement face-to-faceface-off, showdown, encounterdisagreement - the speech act of disagreeing or arguing or disputing
	4.	confrontation - the act of hostile groups opposing each other; "the government was not ready for a confrontation with the unions"; "the invaders encountered stiff opposition"oppositionstrikebreaking - confrontational activities intended to break up a strike by workersresistance - group action in opposition to those in power
	5.	confrontation - a focussed comparison; bringing together for a careful comparisoncomparing, comparison - the act of examining resemblances; "they made a comparison of noise levels"; "the fractions selected for comparison must require pupils to consider both numerator and denominator"

confrontation

noun conflict, fight, crisis, contest, set-to (informal), encounter, showdown (informal), head-to-head, face-off (slang) This issue could lead to a military confrontation.

confrontation

noun1. A face-to-face, usually hostile meeting:encounter, face-off.2. A state of open, prolonged fighting:belligerency, conflict, hostility (used in plural), strife, struggle, war, warfare.3. A state of disagreement and disharmony:clash, conflict, contention, difference, difficulty, disaccord, discord, discordance, dissension, dissent, dissentience, dissidence, dissonance, faction, friction, inharmony, schism, strife, variance, war, warfare.

Translations

对抗

confront

(kənˈfrant) verb1. to bring face to face with. He was confronted with the evidence of his crime.使面对2. to face in a hostile manner; to oppose. They confronted the enemy at dawn.对抗ˌconfronˈtation (kon-) noun对抗

Confrontation

A fundamental right of a defendant in a criminal action to come face-to-face with an adverse witness in the court's presence so the defendant has a fair chance to object to the testimony of the witness, and the opportunity to cross-examine him or her.

The Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments of the U.S. Constitution) specifies certain rights that are inherent to all individuals, in order to protect them from the Arbitrary use of government power. Among these is the right to confront one's accusers in a criminal case, which derives from the Sixth Amendment :"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right …to be confronted with the witnesses against him." The Confrontation Clause, as this part of the Sixth Amendment is generally known, was understood traditionally to mean that criminal defendants had the right to be put in the presence of their accusers in open court, face-to-face, in front of the jury. This right was intended to give defendants the opportunity to cross-examine adverse witnesses, as well as to provide the jury with an opportunity to observe the demeanor of, and to make inferences regarding the reliability of, those witnesses. The substantive meaning of this right has been the subject of great debate, especially regarding the trying of Child Abuse cases involving child witnesses. Does the Confrontation Clause provide the right to confront witnesses in open court, or does it simply convey a right to cross-examine witnesses?

Like most of the protections given criminal defendants in the Constitution, the right of confronting one's accusers has its origins in English Common Law and in the experiences of the colonies before the American Revolution. Until the sixteenth century, the right of confronting one's accusers was nearly absent from the Anglo-American legal tradition. Then, with the introduction of the right to trial by an impartial jury and the firm establishment of the Presumption of Innocence, the right of confrontation came to be seen as an integral part of a proper defense of the rights of the accused. In the American colonies, the Salem Witch Trials in particular created an impetus for establishing the right of the accused to a face-to-face confrontation with the accusers—who, in those cases, were mostly children anonymously accusing their elders. Horrified by the widespread use of coerced and anonymous accusations in these trials, and by the executions that resulted, the Massachusetts Legislature established the right to confront one's accusers. Soon after, the colonial governor disbanded the special Salem court for witch trials; few accusers were willing to face their targets in open court.

The experience of the Salem witch trials made a great impression on the other colonies. By the end of the sixteenth century, most of the colonies had established in their constitutions a right of confrontation that was similar to that recognized in Massachusetts. Thus, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, the right was so firmly entrenched that its inclusion in the Bill of Rights elicited no debate.

The Confrontation Clause gives criminal defendants two specific rights: the right to be present during all critical stages of trial, and the right to confront adverse witnesses. Each of these rights has certain limitations.

The right to be present during critical stages of trial allows defendants to participate actively in their defense by listening to the evidence against them and consulting with their attorneys. However, unruly, defiant, disrespectful, disorderly, and abusive defendants can be removed from the courtroom if the judge feels it is necessary, to maintain the decorum and respect of a judicial proceeding. If a defendant persists in Disorderly Conduct, yet demands to remain in the courtroom, the Sixth Amendment allows a trial court to have that defendant bound and gagged so that his or her presence does not disrupt the proceedings (Tyars v. Finner, 709 F.2d 1274 [9th Cir. 1983]).

The second prong of the Confrontation Clause guarantees defendants the right to face adverse witnesses in person and to subject them to cross-examination. Through cross-examination, defendants are allowed to test the reliability and credibility of witnesses by probing their recollection and exposing any underlying prejudices, biases, or motives that may cause the witness to distort the truth or to lie. However, the right of cross-examination also has limits. Courts may restrict defendants from delving into certain areas on cross-examination. For example, defendants may be denied the right to ask questions that are irrelevant, collateral, confusing, repetitive, or prejudicial. Defendants also may be prevented from pursuing a line of questioning that is meant solely for the purpose of harassment.

Under exceptional circumstances, defendants may be denied the right to confront their accusers face-to-face. In Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 110 S. Ct. 3157, 111 L. Ed. 2d 666 (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a statute that permitted a small child to testify via a one-way, closed-circuit television from a remote location outside the courtroom. In such situations, the Court ruled, the trial court must make a specific finding that keeping the witness out of the presence of the defendant is necessary to protect the witness from traumatic injury. The Craig decision has been the subject of some debate. Victims' Rights advocates and some prosecutors support the additional protection of witnesses, but defense attorneys have argued that shielding children from confrontation is risky, given that the reliability of children's testimony is often in dispute. Even when a witness is permitted to testify outside the presence of the accused, defendants maintain the right of cross-examination.

The importance of a defendant's right to confront and cross-examine his accusers face- to-face in open court was revisited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 119 S. Ct. 1887, 144 L. Ed. 2d 117 (1999).

The case began when the state of Virginia charged Benjamin Lee Lilly with capital murder and called his brother Mark Lilly to testify against him during the trial. When Mark invoked his Privilege against Self-Incrimination, the prosecution sought to introduce a statement that Mark had made to the police in which he had admitted being with Benjamin on the night of the murder, and had told police that he saw Benjamin kill the victim.

The trial court admitted Mark's statement into evidence over Benjamin's objection that it violated the Confrontation Clause. In particular, Benjamin argued that the Fifth Amendment gave him the right to confront his brother face- to-face in open court, and that admitting his brother's out-of-court, Hearsay statement without allowing him to cross-examine Mark violated that right.

The Virginia trial court overruled Benjamin's objection, finding that the statement fell within a "firmly rooted" hearsay exception. In Virginia, the trial court said, it is well settled that declarations against interest are a settled hearsay exception, and thus admissible against a criminal defendant without the declarant being subject to cross-examination.

A declaration against interest is an out-of-court hearsay statement made by a declarant who implicates himself in criminal activity or other wrongdoing, the trial court explained. Because such declarations are not considered to be self-serving, the trial court continued, they are deemed inherently trustworthy. In this case, the trial court noted that Mark Lilly had admitted committing a number of crimes that would have made him eligible for long prison terms if convicted.Based in part on Mark's statement, the jury convicted the defendant of capital murder and sentenced him to death. The defendant appealed, and the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed. Lilly v. Commonwealth, 255 Va. 558, 499 S.E.2d 522 (Va. 1998). Although Virginia's high court recognized that Mark's statements were self-serving to the extent they shifted blame for the more serious crime of murder, from himself to his brother, it said that the self-serving nature of the statement went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. The court also underscored the fact that prosecutors gave Mark no express promise of leniency in exchange for his statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, reversing the Virginia Supreme Court's decision and remanding the case for further proceedings. Writing for a plurality of the justices, Justice John Paul Stevens ruled that an accomplice's statements that tend to shift or spread the blame to a criminal defendant are presumptively unreliable, when that Accomplice has made himself or herself unavailable for cross-examination by invoking the privilege against Self-Incrimination.

The "absence of an express promise of leniency," Stevens wrote, does not ensure reliability because "police need not tell a person who is in custody that his statements may gain him leniency in order for the suspect to surmise that speaking up, and particularly placing blame on his cohorts," could be in his best interest. Stevens observed that while the presumptive unreliability of Mark's statement could be rebutted on remand to the trial court, any rebuttal evidence would need to take into account that the statement had been made in response to the government's leading questions.

On remand, the Virginia Supreme Court decided that the statement's presumptive unreliability could not be rebutted, and overturned the defendant's conviction. Lilly v. Commonwealth, 258 Va. 548, 523 S.E.2d 208 (Va. 1999).

Cross-references

Criminal Procedure.

confrontation

n. 1) fight or argument. 2) the right of a criminal defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses against him" (Sixth Amendment to the Constitution). Confrontation includes the right to object to the witness against him/her (sometimes depending on whether the witness can identify the defendant) and to cross-examine that witness. (See: Bill of Rights, witness)

CONFRONTATION, crim. law, practice. The act by which a witness is brought in the presence of the accused, so that the latter may object to him, if he can, and the former may know and identify the accused, and maintain the truth in his presence. No man can be a witness unless confronted with the accused, except by consent.

confrontation

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confrontation

confrontation

Synonyms for confrontation

noun conflict

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Synonyms for confrontation

noun a face-to-face, usually hostile meeting

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noun a state of open, prolonged fighting

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noun a state of disagreement and disharmony

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Synonyms for confrontation

noun a bold challenge

Related Words

noun discord resulting from a clash of ideas or opinions

Related Words

noun a hostile disagreement face-to-face

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noun the act of hostile groups opposing each other

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noun a focussed comparison

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