DEFENDANT CAN CROSS-EXAMINE FORENSIC EXPERTS, SUPREME COURT RULES

Technicians Who Prepare Crime Lab Reports Can Be Called Forth As
Witnesses, Justices Say, Reversing a Conviction of a Massachusetts
Man Accused of Selling Cocaine.

The Supreme Court announced Thursday a potentially significant change
in how crime lab reports are used in trials, ruling that a defendant
has the right to cross-examine in front of the jury the experts who
prepared these reports.

Crime labs have been subjected to criticism in the last decade, much
of it because of DNA evidence that has shown at least 240 prisoners
were in fact not guilty. In many instances, they were convicted based
on faulty tests involving hair samples, clothing fibers, blood or
ballistics from guns.

Often, these crime lab reports were simply introduced as evidence.
They were assumed to be accurate.

In Thursday's opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said technicians who
prepared these reports acted as "witnesses" for the prosecution. And
under the 6th Amendment, the accused has the right "to be confronted
with the witnesses against him."

Scalia wrote for a 5-4 majority that reversed the conviction of a
Massachusetts man found guilty of selling cocaine.

Police officers took 19 small bags from a car in which Luis
Melendez-Diaz was riding. At the trial, the prosecution submitted a
certificate from a state lab that said the bags contained cocaine.
Melendez-Diaz objected, and his lawyer said he wanted to challenge
the evidence. But the objection was overruled, and the defendant found guilty.

In Melendez-Diaz vs. Massachusetts, the high court reversed his
conviction on the grounds that his right to confront his accuser had
been violated.

Scalia said states can work out procedures that require defendants to
notify prosecutors and lab technicians in advance if they wish to
question them in court. "The sky will not fall after today's
decision," he said, rebutting sharp criticism from the four dissenters.

Stanford law professor Jeffrey Fisher, who represented the defendant,
said the ruling has national significance. "It means the prosecution
must be ready to present forensic evidence through live testimony if
the defendant requests it," he said.

The court lineup was unusual. Scalia was joined by Justices John Paul
Stevens, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The dissenters, led by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, said the ruling
"has vast potential to disrupt criminal procedures that already give
ample protections against the misuse of scientific evidence."

He said the ruling could mean that others who gathered or prepared
lab samples might be called to testify. And he worried that cases
could be thrown out if these experts were unavailable, even if they
had died in the interim.

Kennedy insisted "laboratory analysts who conduct routine scientific
tests are not the kind of conventional witnesses" who are referred to
in the 6th Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices
Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. also dissented