Prosecutors Call Crime Lab Ruling a 'Train Wreck'
In yesterday’s high court ruling that opens the door to direct examination of crime lab personnel, Justice Antonin Scalia quipped that, “the sky will not fall after today’s decision.”
“The confrontation clause may make the prosecution of criminals more burdensome, but that is equally true of the right to trial by jury and the privilege against self-incrimination,” Justice Scalia wrote for a 5-4 majority in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The decision means that crime lab evidence can’t be used against a defendant at trial unless the analysts who evaluate the evidence are subject to cross examination.
Prosecutors, however, are seeing pieces of the sky starting to crumble, especially in large rural states where a single crime lab evaluates evidence, the New York Times reports.
“It’s a train wreck,” Scott Burns, the executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said about the decision.
Burns said the decision will mean that criminalists in already over-burdened, under-funded offices will have to travel to courtrooms, wait their turn “to say that cocaine is cocaine.
“We’re still kind of reeling from this decision,” Burns said.
The Times notes that the decision comes after a series of crime lab scandals that have tainted hundreds of cases in Michigan, Texas and West Virginia.
Those applauding the high court ruling say better scrutiny of evidence handling will better reveal shortcomings in laboratory processes.
Hat tip: Criminal Justice Journalists
