A Massachusetts state legislator has introduced a bill to make it more difficult for accused drug offenders to game the court system as a result of current evidence requirements.
Under the Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz decision from last year, the state is required to provide witness testimony in forensic evidence cases.
According to his guest column in the Sun Chronicle, Representative Joseph R. Driscoll claims that defendants are gaming the system, and asking for state drug analyst witness testimony at the last minute, hoping that the case will be dismissed, since the expert witnesses are a limited resource.
Driscoll proposes that the defense must request live testimony in place of forensic documents alone, “in a timely manner”, or the documents will be considered sufficient. That way, when requested, the prosecutors will have a chance to schedule a court date when they can have their forensics analyst on hand.
This sounds very similar to the Notice and Demand system implemented in Virginia, which, overall, appears to be a reasonable compromise. No one believes that cases should be dismissed simply because the state doesn’t have sufficient resources to comply with the law.
Of course, the states can, and perhaps should hire more drug analyst. But most people believe that the legitimate demand for this testimony is not that high. Defense lawyers will only want to cross-examine the witness in drug cases where they think it will actually help their client. In many situations, having an expert testify may only make the prosecutor’s case look stronger.
Of course, the high court is set to review the Melendez ruling in a case before the court this very session, Briscoe v. Virginia. So it is plausible that this bill might not even be necessary, depending on what the Supreme Court decides, and when the ruling comes down.
About David Matson