A new supreme court ruling has made it so that the prosecution must make a lab technician available to testify in person if the defendant demands it. As a result, some cases already have been dismissed. One state, Virginia, has called a special legislative session to change its laws. And some lawyers think the ruling will continue to have a major effect.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court said that lab reports served as “witnesses” for the prosecution. And because the 6th Amendment gives defendants a right to "be confronted with the witnesses against him," Justice Antonin Scalia said that drug defendants and others were "entitled to be confronted with the [lab] analysts at trial."
Source: Los Angeles Times; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-crime-labs26-2009jul26,0,420958.story
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What do you think about the supreme court's decision?