[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]

“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.

[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 .....

[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.

[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.