New US Supreme Court Ruling on Admissible Evidence

In Menandes Diaz v. Massachusetts, the United States Supreme Court recently decided that the United States Constitution required state prosecutors who want to offer crime lab reports as evidence at trial, to have the particular expert testify in person at the trial and be subject to cross-examination by the Defendant’s Lawyer.  Interestingly, the Supreme Court indicated that defense lawyers must assert the right to confront and cross-examine the expert witness before the State has to produce the witness to testify at trial.

What this means in South Dakota is that any prosecution expert trial witness who does a lab report, chemical analysis, finger prints analysis, blood spatter patterns analysis, blood chemistry analysis, gun, bullet, and really any other form of physical evidence subject to analysis by a laboratory must be supported by a witness and available for cross-examination.  This is typically how it is done anyway at trial, but there may be certain lab reports that are generally relied upon as part of other testimony.

There is no question that this decision will give defense lawyers another avenue to protect their client’s rights by cross-examining certain witnesses that might not otherwise have had to testify.  Defense Lawyers need to make sure they assert these rights.