On June 25, 2009, in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. __ (2009), the United States Supreme Court ruled that a state forensic analyst's laboratory report prepared for use in a criminal prosecution "testimonial" evidence is subject to the demands of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause as set forth in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Please find below a summary of the Melendez-Diaz decision.
SUMMARY OF THE FACTS:
Luis Melendez-Diaz was arrested while making a cocaine sale in a parking lot in Massachusetts. At trial, bags of the cocaine alleged to have been distributed by Melendez-Diaz were introduced into evidence along with drug analysis certificates prepared by the lab technician who analyzed the drugs and identified them as cocaine. A jury convicted Melendez-Diaz of distributing and trafficking cocaine in violation of Massachusetts law. Melendez-Diaz appealed, arguing that the State's introduction of the drug analysis certificates violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him under the Court's ruling in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). Crawford held that so-called "testimonial" evidence cannot be introduced at trial unless the defendant has an opportunity to cross-examine the witness providing the evidence. Melendez-Diaz characterized the laboratory analysis as testimonial and argued that Crawford required the laboratory technician to testify on the results. The State argued that Massachusetts had previously held, in Commonwealth v. Verde , that laboratory reports were not testimonial.
The Massachusetts Court of Appeals rejected Melendez-Diaz's claims in an unpublished opinion, referring to them in a short footnote as "without merit." The Massachusetts Supreme Court also denied his appeal. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
ISSUE:
Is a state forensic analyst's laboratory report prepared for use in a criminal prosecution "testimonial" evidence subject to the demands of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause as set forth in Crawford v. Washington ?
HOLDING:
The Supreme Court held that a state forensic analyst's laboratory report that is prepared for use in a criminal prosecution is subject to the demands of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. With Justice Antonin G. Scalia writing for the majority and joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court reasoned that the laboratory reports constitute affidavits which fall within the "core class of testimonial statements" covered by the Confrontation Clause. Therefore, when Mr. Melendez-Diaz was not allowed to confront the persons who created the laboratory reports used in testimony at his trial, his Sixth Amendment right was violated.
The Court stated as follows:
There is little doubt that the documents … fall within the "core class of testimonial statements" thus described. … The documents at issue here, while denominated by Massachusetts law "certificates," are quite plainly affidavits: "declaration[s] of facts written down and sworn to by the declarant before an officer authorized to administer oaths. [citation omitted] They are incontrovertibly a "`solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some past fact.'" [citation omitted] The fact in question is that the substance found in the possession of Melendez-Diaz and his codefendants was, as the prosecution claimed, cocaine—the precise testimony the analysts would be expected to provide if called at trial. The "certificates" are functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing precisely what a witness does on direct examination. [citation omitted].
Here, moreover, not only were the affidavits "`made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial,'" [cite omitted] but under Massachusetts law the sole purpose of the affidavits was to provide "prima facie evidence of the composition, quality, and net weight" of the analyzed substance…. We can safely assume that the analysts were aware of the affidavits' evidentiary purpose, since that purpose—as stated in the relevant state law provision—was reprinted on the affidavits themselves. [citation omitted]
In short … the analysts' affidavits were testimonial statements, and the analysts were "witnesses" for the purposes of the Sixth Amendment. … [Thus,] petitioner was entitled to "`be confronted with'" the analysts at trial.
Melendez-Diaz, 557 U.S. at ___ (2009) (emphasis in original).
Justice Thomas wrote a separate concurring opinion, emphasizing that he thought the Confrontation Clause was only implicated by statements made outside the courtroom when they are part of "formalized testimonial materials." Justice Anthony M. Kennedy dissented and was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito. He criticized the majority for dispensing with the long held rule that scientific analysis could be introduced into evidence without testimony from the analyst who produced it.
