New SCOTUS ruling something to think about come Casey time

The Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

- Justice Antonin Scalia

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court decided on something that could potentially change how crime labs are used in trials. In a 5-4 vote, it ruled that a defendant has the right to cross-examine, in front of a jury, the experts who prepared the reports. Justice Antonin Scalia spoke for the majority, saying that technicians who prepared the reports are like witnesses for the prosecution and under the Sixth Amendment, the accused has the right “to be confronted by the witnesses against him.”

The court looked into the case of a Massachusetts man who was found guilty of selling cocaine. Police officers had taken 19 small bags of the drug from a vehicle in which Luis Melendez-Diaz was riding. (There’s that hyphenated name thing again. He must have been a fictional nanny at one time.)

At his trial, the prosecution submitted evidence in the form of a certificate from the state lab that said the bags contained cocaine. So far, so good. But wait! It gets better (in a nod to the late Billy Mays) for the defendant, anyway. Melendez-Diaz objected, and his lawyer said he wanted to challenge that evidence. The objection was overruled and Melendez-Diaz was found guilty.

How does it get better, you may ask? Well, crime labs have done the bulk of the work throughout the years. Of late, a lot of the results have come under the gun, so to speak, due to DNA evidence that has shown at least 240 prisoners were not guilty of the crimes they were sentenced for because of faulty lab work. In many instances, they were convicted based on tests involving hair samples, clothing fibers, blood, ballistics from guns, teeth marks, or any combination of tests not including DNA samples. In the past ten years alone, a lot of criticism has been thrown at crime lab reports. Up until then, that was pretty much the litmus test because, quite often, they were assumed to be very accurate. In Melendez v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction by stating the defendant has the right to question those findings.

With this new Supreme Court ruling, it may alter the course of defense in the Casey Anthony trial when it finally comes to fruition, because almost all of the physical evidence against her is circumstantial and based on lab work. Yes, DNA evidence proved that the bones found in those woods near the Anthony home were Caylee’s, but from what the state has released to the public thus far, the rest of the DNA tests have only shown pieces and parts of evidence pointing to a possible murder scenario. Taken together, in other words with other evidence combined, the state paints a rather vivid picture of what transpired in June of last year, and enough evidence should exist to convict her mother of murder. What this new ruling does, though, is offer the defense more of an opportunity to smear that painting by picking each test apart at its roots. Instead of merely relying on a printed piece of paper with test results, the technicians in charge of each test – the person pushing the buttons and looking under a microscope – will be subjected to scrutinization by the defense as it attempts to diffuse those results by inferring they are unreliable and this new Supreme Court ruling says so. If the defense is good at its job and the techie is more of a techno-nerd than an orator, well, do you see what could happen if one of the attorneys gets the upper hand? In any event, don’t blame Baez. That is his job, as well as it is for every defense attorney in the country, and remember, the decision was not rendered for the sake of one person. It took over 240 innocent voices.

Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts

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