Lab Analysts Must Testify

The sixth Amendment may rule after all as the SCOTUS ruled in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts 07-591.

“The court’s holding,” Justice Kennedy wrote, “is a windfall to defendants, one that is unjustified by a demonstrated deficiency in trials, any well-understood historical requirement, or any established constitutional precedent.”

Yes, and the last thing that we can have in a “Justice System” where you are presumed innocent until proven guilty is a “windfall to defendants.” So Justice Kennedy, the usual favorite procedural efficiency argument is the wasting of the judicial system’s resources. That argument lost this time when it comes to a defendant’s right to meaningful confrontation of the evidence presented to the jury.

Oh, and what a weird group of folks: Scalia, Stevens, Souter, Thomas (concurring), Ginsberg, w/ Kennedy, Roberts, Breyer and Alito dissenting.