I mentioned in a recent News Roundup that the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in Smith v. Arizona. The case tees up a question that has been lingering since at least 2012: Does the Confrontation Clause permit the admission of substitute forensic analyst testimony? This issue arises when a forensic report is prepared for use in a criminal case, but the testing analyst is not available for trial. Instead of admitting the report through the original analyst, the State calls a different expert—one not necessarily involved in the original testing—to offer an opinion about the accuracy of the report. North Carolina generally allows such testimony, but there is a split among jurisdictions on the issue. Smith has the potential to alter the legal landscape here and elsewhere regarding the use of substitute analyst testimony, so today’s post dives into the legal issues and potential impact of the case.
melendez-diaz
Imposing Fees for Forensic Expert Testimony — Is It Constitutional?
Tucked into the 2013 North Carolina budget bill is a provision imposing new court costs for expert witnesses who testify about chemical or forensic analyses at trial. Specifically, the new law (sec. 18B.19 of the budget bill) provides that upon conviction the trial judge must require a convicted defendant to pay $600 in costs if … Read more
Beyond Legislative Solutions to Melendez-Diaz
My recent paper (here) on the use of remote testimony in criminal cases involving forensic analysts was written in part because of the flood of interest in legislative solutions to Melendez-Diaz. That case held that forensic reports are testimonial and subject to the new Crawford confrontation clause analysis. One slam dunk solution to the Melendez-Diaz … Read more
California Tackles Substitute Analysts Post-Williams
In a paper here I analyze Williams v. Illinois, the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest confrontation decision on substitute analyst testimony. Because Williams was a fractured opinion in which no rationale garnered five votes, it didn’t answer a lot of questions. Three companion cases recently decided by the California Supreme Court show how one court is … Read more
It’s Testimonial, Stupid
“It’s the economy, stupid,” was a catch phrase in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. I have my own catch phrase, but it’s for trying drug cases. Here it is: “It’s testimonial, stupid.” Nearly everyone is having a difficult adjustment to the new confrontation clause regime after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Crawford decision and its … Read more
On the Horizon: U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Another Substitute Analyst Case
In a post here, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011), holding that substitute analyst testimony in an impaired driving case violated Crawford. Bullcoming was no great surprise in light of the Court’s prior decision in Melendez-Diaz. However, less than one week after the … Read more
Bullcoming and Substitute Analysts
On June 23rd, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bullcoming v. New Mexico. As anticipated, the case turned out to be a straightforward application of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 2527 (2009) (forensic laboratory reports are testimonial; absent a stipulation, the prosecution may not introduce such a report without a live witness … Read more
New Trial Ordered in Unpublished Melendez-Diaz Autopsy Case
Along with the published cases released by the N.C. Court of Appeals on August 3, 2010, was an unpublished case of note. In State v. Davis, __ N.C. App. __ (Aug. 3, 2010), the court ordered a new trial after finding that the trial judge erred by admitting into evidence an autopsy report prepared by … Read more
North Carolina Supreme Court Enters Temporary Stays in Two Substitute Analyst Cases
Previously, Jeff and I posted about the post-Melendez-Diaz decisions by the N.C. Court of Appeals in the Brennan and Brewington substitute analyst cases (those posts are available here, here, and here). In Brennan, the court concluded that testimony of a substitute analyst identifying a substance as cocaine base violated the defendant’s confrontation clause rights. Similarly, … Read more
United States Supreme Court Denies Certiorari in Substitute Analyst Case
As I have discussed in a number of prior posts [editor’s note: the most recent of those posts is here], the North Carolina courts have been struggling with whether the Confrontation Clause, as interpreted the Court in Crawford v. Washington and Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, allows for the use of substitute analysts. The petition for writ … Read more