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Home > ULR > Vol. 2010 > No. 2

 

Abstract

On February 18, 2009, the NAS Report revealed systemic problems across the range of forensic fields and proposed specific recommendations for the forensic communities and the courts. According to the NAS Report, the Federal Rules of Evidence and Daubert have failed to prevent our criminal courts from "continu[ing] to rely on forensic evidence without fully understanding and addressing the limitations of different forensic science disciplines. "Four months later, the Supreme Court expanded the criminal defendant’s right to confrontation, citing the “[s]erious deficiencies [that] have been found in the forensic evidence used in criminal trials.”Together, the NAS Report and Melendez-Diaz raise important questions about how future courts should test the validity of proffered forensic evidence. For decades, and especially since Daubert was decided in 1993, these have traditionally been viewed as evidence questions and addressed with evidentiary rules and standards. However, the NAS Report and Melendez-Diaz offer new and different solutions. The NAS Report recommendations begin with an ambitious plan to centralize and coordinate the fields and to improve funding and support for legitimate forensic research. These extrajudicial approaches require a substantial national commitment of time and money and the creation of new programs designed to improve oversight, increase standardization, and enhance interdisciplinary coordination. Melendez-Diaz opts for a more immediate constitutional solution designed to neutralize the impact of some forensic evidence by guaranteeing defendants the right to cross-examine prosecutors’ experts. This recent expansion of the Confrontation Clause purports to provide defendants with the power to expose the forensic analyst who “sacrifice[d] appropriate methodology for the sake of expediency” and “the analyst who provides false results [and] may, under oath in open court, reconsider his false testimony.”

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