Analysis: Law need not bow to chemistry

scotusblog.com ^ | June 25, 2009 | Lyle Denniston

[parsifal]

This is a relief. State’s side in prosecution is often a monolith and very untruthful. There is even a word for cop testimony-—testilying.

parsy, who has read about this

[Lurker]

One has the Constitutionally guaranteed Right to face ones accuser in open Court. If some pocket protector wearing ‘scientist’ files a report inferring my guilt you’re damn straight I want his ass on the stand.

[HiTech RedNeck]

One of the oddest 5-4 splits on record.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I wonder how the Senate legislators are going to view Sotomayer (who certainly would have empathy voted with the present majority) now. Will they see her as a frustration to their goal, which historically has been to hinder tough cross examination of alleged science in the courtroom?

[sionnsar]

Agreed. But it went the right way.

[okie01]

One of the oddest 5-4 splits on record.

Indeed. But if Scalia and Thomas authored it, I'm confident it's right...

[HiTech RedNeck]

“We would reach the same conclusion,” he wrote in a footnote, “if all analysts possessed the scientific acumen of Mme. Curie and the veracity of Mother Theresa.”

Too bad for your example, Nino, that Ms. Curie croaked from her carelessness with radium... but overall, good shoot.

[neverdem]

Roberts & Alito really dropped the ball.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Scalia and Thomas are more “principle conservatives,” whereas Roberts and Alito are more “establishment conservatives.” Thank you Bush I.

[Robert A Cook PE]

He cited one report, for example, that said “there is wide variabiility across forensic science disciplines with regard to techniques, methodologies, reliability, types and numbers of potential errors, research, general acceptability, and published material.”

Putting the chemist or lab technician on the stand to be tested by cross-examination, the majority said, will help “weed out not only the fraudulent analyst, but the incompetent one as well.”

Still, Scalia said, the decision to compel the reports’ expert authors to testify is based ultimately on the right of confrontation, not the quality of the reports or the credibility of the chemist.

Funny: We got a 1.3 trillion dollar tax bill stuffed down our throats based on faulty evidence, “scientific lies” and the outright refusal of the democrats to allow any debate on the bill .....

[Daffynition]

I’m reading John Grisham’s The Innocent Man ...and you are correct .... testimony, evidence tampering. Oi!

[Still Thinking]

The ruling will provide for an added layer of challenge by defense lawyers to such criminal evidence as illegal drugs, fingerprints, blood spatter patterns and blood chemistry, guns and bullets, and other forms of physical evidence subjected to lab analyses, at least when the resulting reports are prepared for use as evidence in criminal trials.

True, but it also allows prosecutors to question defense lab experts as well. Seems like the right decision.

[neverdem]

It’s odd that they chose chemistry as opposed to forensic evidence or forensic science for the title, considering chemistry has to be one the more opaque sciences to them after they let the EPA call carbon dioxide a pollutant.

[parsifal]

I hope not. I used to think conservative judges were better because of the word “conservative.” I found out “liberal” judges tend to be more pro-citizen. “Conservative” judges are more pro-gov’t. We need better words. grishams books are very very realistic.

parsy, who read a few of them.

[parsifal]

What goes on behind the scenes would shock you.

parsy, who want to see criminals locked up or punished, but...

[muawiyah]

The major problem for the accused under this decision is that "if he's guilty" this simply increases the time to discuss the narcotics he was peddling and reduces, proportionately, the chance to talk about what a good boy he was otherwise.

The result will be that more guilty perps will end up in jail longer, and a couple of guys who might be lucky ('cause the lab messed up something) will get to go back on the street and try it again real soon.

I seriously doubt it will reduce the number of innocent people sent to jail.

[Still Thinking]

To the complaints of prosecutors (and the dissenting Justices) that the decision is going to lay a heavy new burden on the preparation and analysis of criminal evidence, Justice Scalia opined that “the sky will not fall.”

The statists offered nary a word of complaint when the state used taxpayer money to hire all these guys who essentially back up the prosecutor, truly a "heavy new burden" for the defense. They can hardly call this a "heavy new burden" for the prosecution.

[Still Thinking]

Well, I assume the attorneys for the guilty guys will figure that out and react accordingly, but it’s at least a new tool that can be used by people to show the lab-state-prosecution relationship instead of being forced to treat lab results paid from the same purse as the prosecution as holy writ.

[muawiyah]

I think your uspoken assumption is that laboratory results are invariably modified to serve the interests of the folks who pay for them.

That's a pretty Leftwingtard thought ~ they claim that if a private company pays a scientist to investigate something, he will simply tell them what they want to hear, but if the government pays, then it's all TRUE.

Just showing a "link" does not demonstrate "error". Correlation is not Causation.

My own thought is that "riding time" counts in Court, so you don't want your lawyer standing there wasting time highlighting the reasons you are in court ~ you want him getting you off the hook!