You can't just mail it in.

Last week the US Supreme Court issued a very important, although brief, opinion. It was the case of Briscoe v. Virginia, __U.S. __ (No. 07-11191, 1/25/10). Last year the Supreme Court ruled in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. ___ (2009) that the all too common practice of just submitting lab reports into evidence with no testimony from the analyst was a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the U.S. Constitution. For the non-attorney readers the confrontation clause is part of the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution that provides "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him." In all criminal prosecutions the accused gets to look his accusers in the eye and have his attorney cross examine them while under oath. Last year the Supreme Court ruled in Melendez-Diaz that a lab report is testimonial and therefore the analyst should be subject to cross examination about their work and conclusions. The reason Briscoe is important is because after Melendez-Diaz was issued last, year the usual suspects of Chicken Littles began their "the sky is falling" routine and called for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue. Well they have. Same result.

The message to the government from the Supreme Court is that you can't just mail it in! You actually have to go to the trouble of having a living witness available for cross examination because it just does not work out trying to cross examine a piece of paper. Turns out the confrontation clause of the 6th is alive and well after all.