Avoiding Confrontation with DNA
Yesterday the Supreme Court Justices splintered over the meaning of the Confrontation Clause in cases involving forensic DNA testing – making a muddle of an important problem and with few discernible arguments that hold much water. The case involved a sexual assault, but the Illinois State Police did not test crime scene evidence – they tested a sample of blood from the suspect and obtained his DNA profile. The evidence from the rape kit was DNA tested by an outside lab, Cellmark. The prosecutor did not call the Cellmark technician at trial, the one who did the most important DNA testing in the case, the testing that identified the DNA profile from the semen of the assailant. Instead, the prosecutor called the crime lab technician who described the defendant’s profile – and sneaking the match in through the back door, by having that technician say how it matched the profile identified in the Cellmark report. The DNA was central evidence at trial, although the victim also identified the defendant in a line-up. The defense had no opportunity to cross-examine the Cellmark analyst who did the crucial DNA work.