The United States Supreme Court recently held that a defendant in a criminal case has the constitutional right to cross exam government chemists who analyze chemical substances when the government seeks to introduce into evidence the lab reports prepared by government crime labs to prove the substance is what the government says it is. Prior to this ruling and as it relates to DUI / Drunk Driving prosecutions, some states allowed government lab analysis reports into evidence without the need to call the analyst to testify as to the lab report contents. However, in California, this ruling doesn’t change the admissibility of crime lab reports in DUI / Drunk Driving prosecutions because courts in California have required experts from crime labs to testify as to the preparation, contents and conclusions contained in the reports. The recent ruling clearly is an acknowledgement by the U.S.  Supreme Court that through cross-examination by defense counsel in criminal cases, a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights are protected.  Errors in crime labs have been widely reported as well as discussed in my DUI / Drunk Driving blogs in the past.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Myles Berman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.