U.S. Supreme Court confronts the Confrontation Clause in Constitution

U.S. Supreme Court confronts the limits of the “Confrontation Clause” in the United States’ Constitution

The Supreme Court of the United States tackled the thorny issue of whether a criminal defendant’s ‘right to confront his or her accuser’ protected under the Constitution is violated when a DNA expert testifies as to findings and testing made by a non-testifying expert (not in court). In explanation, the testifying expert talks about the tests and findings of someone who does not testify in Court. This is the latest case in what many describe as a confrontation clause revolution. Williams v. Illinois is a follow-up to Bullcoming v. New Mexico and the cases stemming from Crawford v. Washington which strengthened the application of the Confrontation Clause in criminal cases.

In Williams v. Illinois, a government expert witness testified that a DNA profile prepared by Cellmark, a third party lab (and no one testified from that lab), matched the DNA profile of the defendant Williams. Cellmark had prepared and entered Williams’ “DNA Profile” into the Illinois State Police database and the testifying witness matched the evidence at trial to the profile in the database to conclude that the evidence of the crime matched the profile in the database. Williams was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He asserted that since the expert’s testimony was partially based on Cellmark’s testing, his confrontation rights were violated because he was unable to cross-examine the person who developed the Cellmark profile.

The Supreme Court will likely be evenly divided in this case. For admission of the expert’s testimony based in part on the findings of the non-testifying Cellmark expert, proponents may assert that the entries in the database are performed as a matter of course, to exacting standards, and that entry of the profile is done without passion or bias, and thus reliable, for all those convicted of felonies or other serious crimes. As such, it is reliably adopted by the expert in the case. However, against that argument, one may argue that the Constitution demands that an accused person be able to confront all witnesses against him/her, question the competency, training, and the non-testifying expert’s attention to detail in accord with standards, as well as any bias or prejudice of the scientist in question. If the accused cannot do so, the relevance of the evidence in court is blindly accepted, rather than ‘confronted,’ and thus in violation of the US Constitution.