The Sky is Falling!!! — More Melendez-Diaz Complaints

Here is another “scare tac­tic” arti­cle posted to show why it isn’t “fair” for the defen­dant to face their accuser — con­sti­tu­tional right be damned.

The state’s approx­i­mately 160 tech­ni­cians had been sub­poe­naed only 43 times in July 2008, but they were called a whop­ping 925 times in July 2009 after the high court ruling.

Very mis­lead­ing. Just because you are sub­poe­naed, doesn’t mean you end up tes­ti­fy­ing. I would rou­tinely get up to 8 sub­poe­nas for the same day when I worked for the state. Most times I wouldn’t end up tes­ti­fy­ing once.

It is a good idea for the pros­e­cu­tion to be able to get delays in case the lab­o­ra­tory ana­lyst isn’t avail­able, as long as there is some warn­ing. You don’t want a trial to be three weeks in progress, and the state to cry “no ana­lyst available.”

Read the rest of this Washington Times edi­to­r­ial here.