This past term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the latest in a series of confrontation clause cases that began in 2004 with Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36. In Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 11 C.D.O.S. 7706, the court held that the confrontation clause does not permit the government to introduce a forensic lab report in a criminal trial through the in-court testimony of an analyst who did not personally perform or observe the test that formed the basis for the report.
Bullcoming follows in the footsteps of the court’s decision two terms ago in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 08 C.D.O.S. 7994, which held that a forensic lab report that showed the substance found on a defendant to be cocaine was “testimonial” in nature under its earlier test in Crawford, and therefore, could not be introduced without offering a live witness competent to testify to the truth of the report’s statements.
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