In the case of Colorado v. Bannister, 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Colorado. The issue at hand was whether a defendant's right to confront witnesses against him had been violated when he was not allowed to cross-examine his co-defendant who had implicated him during a separate trial but refused to testify at their joint retrial. The court held that there was no violation because the testimony from the first trial could be used as evidence in subsequent trials without violating confrontation rights if it bore "indicia of reliability." In this case, since both defendants were represented by counsel and had an opportunity for cross-examination during the initial trial, these conditions were met and thus there was no constitutional violation.

In the dissenting opinion for Colorado v. Bannister, Justice Brennan disagreed with the majority's decision to uphold a warrantless search of an automobile based on probable cause. He argued that this ruling was inconsistent with previous Supreme Court decisions and undermined Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Brennan contended that police should have obtained a warrant before searching the car, as there were no exigent circumstances justifying immediate action without judicial approval. Furthermore, he criticized the majority’s reliance on Carroll v. United States (1925), which allowed warrantless vehicle searches due to their mobile nature but did not consider whether such mobility created exigent circumstances in each case. In his view, this broad interpretation could potentially lead to abuse of power by law enforcement officers who might use it as an excuse for bypassing constitutional safeguards.