In August 2005, Donald Bullcoming's car rear-ended a pick-up truck at an intersection in Farmington, New Mexico. The drivers got out of their cars to exchange insurance information, the other driver noticing that Bullcoming?s eyes were bloodshot and that his breath smelled of alcohol. The driver told his wife to call the police; Bullcoming left before the police arrived, but officers found him and performed field sobriety tests, arresting him for a DWI. Bullcoming refused a breathalyzer test, so the police obtained a warrant to draw his blood, which was sent to a state lab for blood-alcohol testing by staffer Curtis Caylor. That test revealed a BAC level sufficient to elevate the charge to aggravated DWI.
When it was time for Bullcoming's trial, the lab analyst who performed the test (Caylor) wasn't called as a witness, having ?very recently [been] put on unpaid leave? for a reason not revealed. "A startled defense counsel objected," the Supreme Court's majority explained today, "The prosecution, she complained, had never disclosed, until trial commenced, that the witness 'out there ? [was] not the analyst [of Bullcoming?s sample].'? The state proposed to introduce the test results as a ?business record? during the testimony of Gerasimos Razatos, another scientist at the lab who had neither observed nor reviewed Caylor?s analysis. The defense objected. The judge overruled and allowed the testimony in; Bullcoming was convicted of aggravated DWI.
In a 5-4 decision today the Supreme Court held that this violated Bullcoming's rights under the Confrontation Clause, because "the accused?s right is to be confronted with the analyst who made the certification, unless that analyst is unavailable at trial, and the accused had an opportunity, pretrial, to cross-examine that particular scientist."
You'll want to see the lineup before proceeding:
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part IV and footnote 6. Scalia, J., joined that opinion in full, Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ., joined as to all but Part IV, and Thomas, J., joined as to all but Part IV and footnote 6. Sotomayor, J., filed an opinion concurring in part. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Breyer and Alito, JJ., joined.No, that isn't the alignment you may have expected, I'm guessing.
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