Legal Question in Criminal Law in Washington

Re: trial

No necessarily. There are a number of courts that attempt to proceed without a witness. This possibility is increased if you do not have a lawyer. The prosecutor then knows that you probably do not know what objections to make and cannot 'create a record' for appeal if the judge makes a faulty ruling.

The Sixth amendment gives you to the right to confront the witnesses against you but there are exceptions. There is lots of case law on witness unavailability. Normally, hearsay prevents the admission of out of court statements however there are lots of exceptions. The major exceptions being 'excited utterance' and 'present sense impression.' Both of these exceptions have considerable case law defining their use.