Another Confrontation Case at the Supremes - Williams v. Illinois

This Tuesday (6 Dec 11), the United States Supreme Court heard another Confrontation Clause case (Williams v. Illinois) dealing with forensic testing (ala Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming).  The question presented was

Whether a state rule of evidence allowing an expert witness to testify about the results of DNA testing performed by non-testifying analysts, where the defendant has no opportunity to confront the actual analysts, violates the Confrontation Clause.

At trial, the state called a DNA expert to testify about how it matched the accused's DNA profile with DNA evidence recovered from a rape victim, but the state did not call a DNA analyst from the company that conducted the initial testing.  The defendant later claimed that his right to confrontation was violated because he was denied an opportunity to question all of the DNA analysts that tested the evidence.  The Court was hotly divided on the issue, at times debating amongst themselves. 

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post covered the case HERE.  I couldn't attend the hearing, so I'll rely on his account of the oral argument.

The ABA preview of the case, which briefs and such, is HERE.

Just Take My Word For It

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Meledez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, crime lab analysts that conduct testing and prepare certificates (affidavits) regarding the contraband nature of a substance are “witnesses” and the defendant must be afforded an opportunity to confront them in court. This ended the State’s longtime practice of simply offering an affidavit from the crime lab to prove that the substance seized was, in fact, cocaine (or any form of contraband).

Similarly, the 2nd District Court of Appeals (Fort Worth) recently had the occasion to consider whether the admission of intoxilyzer maintenance records and breath test results (in a post-Melendez-Diaz world) violated the defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him as provided in the Sixth Amendment. In Settlemire v. State, the technical supervisor of the intoxilyzer machine testified at trial to authenticate and breath test, but she was not the actual supervisor at the time of the test and she was not the technician who performed the test on the defendant.

Not surprisingly, the 2nd Court held that the supervisor’s testimony satisfied the Supreme Court’s mandate in Melendez-Diaz. In a brief opinion that was short on analysis, Justice Bleil quoted directly from Melendez-Diaz, wherein the Court explained:

[W]e do not hold, and it is not the case, that anyone whose testimony may be relevant in establishing the chain of custody, authenticity of the sample, or accuracy of the testing device, must appear in person as part of the prosecution’s case. . . . Additionally, documents prepared in the regular course of equipment maintenance may well qualify as nontestimonial records.

The opinion went on to state that the technical supervisor of the machine, who testified about the intoxilyzer’s status (although she did not supervise at the time of the defendant’s test) “is precisely the type of analyst that the Court anticipated might be challenged based on its holding in Melendez-Diaz.”

Confrontation Clause and Lab Reports???

Well I was hoping that the Supreme Court might take the opportunity in Briscoe v. Virginia to clarify its opinion from last term in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, but it passed.  Instead of articulating what exactly the confrontation clause requires of the State when offering lab reports into evidence, the Court merely stated, in a per curiam opinion,

"We vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U. S. ___ (2009)."

Hopefully, the Court will seize its next opporutunity to answer the question when it hears, City of Ontario v. Quon this term, but from the looks of it, I doubt it will.  So in the wake of Crawford and Melendez-Diaz, and now Briscoe, we still don't know...

• What parts of a lab report are "testimonial" triggering Crawford and the Sixth Amendment?
• If a lab report is testimonial, who from the lab must testify in order to satisfy the CC?
• Would the Supreme Court require all lab technicians who took part in operating the machinery which led to the creation of the report testify?  
• Does it satisfy the CC if a supervisor of the lab testifies alone?

These are the burning questions with which we are left.  In fact, these are questions that many of the justices asked of the counsel in both Melendez-Diaz and Briscoe.  I guess we will have to wait while the justices figure out the answers for themselves.  Much like Crawford, the law provides more questions than answers.


Thanks to the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog for alerting me to the release of the Briscoe opinion.