Virginia sneaks around Melendez-Diaz, to deny 6^th Amendment to Accused

Looks like Virginia, not happy with the US Supreme Court try­ing to ensure defen­dants’ 6^th Amendment rights, is try­ing to find a sneaky way around the Melendez-Diaz ruling.

Following Melendez-Diaz, the Virginia leg­is­la­ture took action almost imme­di­ately. Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia called a spe­cial ses­sion of the leg­is­la­ture to amend the state’s statute gov­ern­ing the use of crime lab­o­ra­tory reports.

Now the appoint­ment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to replace for­mer Justice David Souter has the poten­tial to mit­i­gate the effects of the Melendez-Diaz rul­ing. “Her views could lead to the nar­row­ing of the last term’s deci­sion hold­ing that crime lab ana­lysts must pro­vide live tes­ti­mony con­cern­ing lab tests and results,” Bradford A. Berenson told The Washington Post. “This term, Briscoe v. Virginia pro­vides an oppor­tu­nity to limit the scope of that ruling.”

I guess some politi­cians will try just about any­thing to pre­vent some­thing from slow­ing down gov­ern­ment bureau­cracy, even if it means ignor­ing the US Constitution.

Read the arti­cle in con­text here.