Court: Experts must be cross-examined

WASHINGTON, June 25 (UPI) -- A five-member U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled Thursday that defendants have the right to cross-examine actual expert witnesses, not accept sworn documents.

The ruling came in the Massachusetts case of a defendant who challenged the introduction of certificates of state laboratory analysts in his drug trial.

The 5-4 ruling did not come along the court's ideological divide. Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by two liberals and two conservatives, wrote the majority opinion in favor of defendants. Moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a key court swing vote, wrote the dissent, joined by two conservatives and one liberal.

At Luis Melendez-Diaz's trial, prosecutors introduced certificates of state lab analysts that said material seized by police and linked to the defendant in Boston was cocaine. The certificates were sworn to before a notary public, as required by state law.

The state disagreed with Melendez-Diaz's lawyers, who said he had a right under Supreme Court precedent to have the analysts testify in person.

But the Supreme Court majority said Thursday the admission of the certificates as evidence, even though allowed under state law, violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment's right to confront the witnesses against him.

Under a 2004 Supreme Court precedent, Scalia wrote, "a witness's testimony against a defendant is inadmissible unless the witness appears at trial or, if the witness is unavailable, the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination."

In dissent, Kennedy said the broad majority opinion didn't fit with past interpretations of the precedent, and now any number of cases across the country may be challenged because of error at trial, adding, "The risk of that consequence ought to tell us that something is very wrong with the (majority's) analysis."

(Melendez-Diaz vs. Massachusetts, No. 07-591)