Title: The Admissibility of Laboratory Reports: The <i>Melendez‐Diaz</i> , <i>Bullcoming</i> , and <i>Williams</i> Cases
Abstract: Abstract The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides seven basic rights to the accused in criminal prosecutions, including the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” This right is referred to as the right to confrontation and the provision is known as “the Confrontation Clause.” In 2009, through Melendez‐Diaz v. Massachusetts the United States Supreme Court continued the reformation of the Confrontation Clause begun four years before in Crawford v. Washington which severed the right to confrontation from the rules of evidence concerning hearsay. In Crawford , the Court had held that the constitutional protections of the Confrontation Clause extended to all “testimonial statements.” In Melendez‐Diaz , the Court continued to define “testimonial statements,” holding that laboratory reports of forensic analysis were “testimonial” in nature. This holding meant that for the forensic reports to be admissible over defense objection, the Confrontation Clause required the presentation of the forensic analyst for in‐court testimony with the opportunity for cross‐examination. By 2012, the Supreme Court issued two more opinions in Bullcoming v. New Mexico and Williams v. Illinois , the Court addressed ancillary questions that arose, including the identity of the required live witness and extent to which the testimony of expert witnesses could rely on the work of non‐testifying analysts.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-03-14
Language: en
Type: other
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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