A recent Supreme Court decision has already been resulting in an increased number of acquittals in drug and dui cases. The decision from Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts says that prosecutors must present a lab analyst for cross-examination in order for forensic evidence to stand in court. Prior to this decision, prosecutors were permitted to enter a paper lab report as suitable evidence.
While many prosecutors are claiming this will provide them with an unnecessary burden that will stretch their already thin budgets too tightly, defense attorneys everywhere are praising the court for this additional protection against wrongful convictions. San Diego Criminal Attorney Henry Root believes this will help put an end to evidence abuse by dishonest police forensic labs, some of whom have been known to occasionally manipulate evidence to better support a conviction. He also believes this will help eliminate the concern of incompetent or unfocused analysts as well.
Justice Scalia wrote of the decision, “[the defendant] was entitled to ‘be confronted with’ the analysts at trial.”
Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project in New York explained, “The Supreme Court rejected the notion that forensic science is always neutral and based on solid science…The Court said our criminal justice system can’t rely blindly on forensic analysts’ reports because they may distort results to favor the prosecution.”
More information about the decision and how it is already affecting the court systems can be found here.
Image Via NCinDC [Flickr]
Tags: burden of proof, evidence, forensics, supreme court, testimony, trials