DUI attorneys in San Diego have been contemplating how drunk driving & drug cases will be affected in San Diego California after the Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court referenced a report which called into question the reliability of forensic science. Rather than neutral scientific fact, crime lab reports are now viewed by the Court as indictments of the defendant and subject to the restrictions of the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.

Some of the latest crime lab scandals prove that live testimony from analysts is needed to explore potential flaws in laboratory reports.

The analyst needs to be interrogated about the process, about the meaning of the lab report as the paper itself cannot be interrogated to establish the strengths and limitations of the analysis.

Often errors just win cases on evidentiary problems as drug screening tests may be scientifically reliable, in general, but the reality is underfunding and increasing instances of human error in forensic laboratories can render results unreliable. A renowned defense lawyer once noted in a speech that often, when there is no not much of a factual defense, since the burden is on the prosecution, a good San Diego DUI criminal defense attorney will attack the state's case.

The Supreme Court decision recognized the problem without addressing it. Without underlying research and standards, nobody knows how reliable the science is. That is why we need a National Institute of Forensic Science.

One state, Michigan, may hold the key to dealing with the burden imposed by the Court’s decision. When the state passed .08 BAC legislation, law enforcement was encouraged to ask for drug and blood screening on all blood draws of suspected impaired driving offenders. This caused a dramatic spike in the caseload for blood/alcohol analysis at the Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division's Toxicology Laboratory. Due to Michigan’s requirement for analyst testimony, lab scientists were forced to spend a significant portion of their workday traveling and testifying in courts across the state. The Michigan State Police decided to implement a video testimony program allowing analysts to testify from their own labs via video transmission. Video technology even allows analysts to schedule multiple testimonies with various courts across the state on the same day. After multiple video testimonies utilized by courts across the state, overall savings are estimated at a thousand dollars per testimony. This technology has also saved the state many staff hours (typically wasted in travel time), utilizing the technology to reduce the time scientists are out of the lab to 30 minutes instead of 14 hours, the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning reports. After one full year of operation, the State Police Forensic Science Laboratory experienced a decreased alcohol backlog.

Forensic analysts must now be available to testify if their reports are admitted as evidence. The Court left it to individual states to sort out the logistics of calling analysts to testify, and it is too soon to see the full ramifications of this decision.

As San Diego California DUI defense attorneys look forward to the opportunity to test this decision. DUI cases may have to be reduced to reckless driving because an analyst is not around.

If you need help, contact a San Diego drunk driving defense lawyer who wants to help.