Supreme Court requires lab analyst testimony

[dbackjon]

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that crime lab reports used in drug and other cases can be introduced as evidence at trial only if defendants can cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepared them.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled a defendants' constitutional right to confront witnesses against them extended to reports of forensic analysis, such as those showing the material seized by the police was cocaine.

Prosecutors use lab reports in thousands of cases each year involving illegal drugs, fingerprint identifications, blood alcohol tests and DNA evidence. Jurors most often just get the reports with any testimony by the analysts who prepared them.

About 20 states now give defendants some right to cross-examine lab employees about forensic evidence. The ruling came after recent scandals at major crime laboratories about shoddy work and errors.

The ruling involved a drug case from Massachusetts. Luis Melendez-Diaz was convicted of trafficking in cocaine partly on the basis of a crime lab analysis that certified that cocaine was in plastic bags found in the car in which he was riding.

The trial judge rejected objections from defense lawyers who argued the analyst who prepared the report must be called to testify about the testing method, how the evidence had been preserved and other issues.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domestic ... 8G20090625

[dbackjon]

Writing the court's majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the constitutional right of defendants to confront witnesses against them cannot be relaxed simply because it makes the prosecution's task more burdensome.


Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito dissented.


Interesting - Scalia, Thomas, Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter on one side, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Alito on the other.

[OL FU]

Good for Scalia

[Ivytalk]

Writing the court's majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the constitutional right of defendants to confront witnesses against them cannot be relaxed simply because it makes the prosecution's task more burdensome.


Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito dissented.


Interesting - Scalia, Thomas, Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter on one side, Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Alito on the other.

That may be the first and last time the justices ever split that way! Kennedy mussed be pissed to be in the minority when he usually "plays pivot" on those 5-4 rulings. I agree with the result.

[JoltinJoe]

Scalia's opinion doesn't surprise me in the least. As I have said before, the perception that Scalia is hostile to individual rights isn't accurate. In cases where Scalia sees textual support for an individual right -- like a criminal defendant's right confrontation -- he is swift to defend that right. This harkens back to Scalia's concurrence in Justice Brennan's decision that the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech protects flag burning as a form of protected speech.

It is when Scalia can find no textual support in the Constitution for the asserted indiviudal right, like privacy or abortion, that he sides against the claimed individual right. Scalia's reputation as a "conservative" is largely formed based on his refusal to expand individual rights in situations where there is no textual support for the right.

In my mind, the real question here is why Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer and Alito went the other way. I agree with Ivytalk that a criminal defendant's right to confront his accusers includes the right to question analysts who prepared such reports. I'm going to have to read those dissents because it seems pretty clear to me that the majority is right.

[dbackjon]

Look forward to your analysis, JJ