Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts
Case Date: 06/25/2009
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Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 129 S.Ct. 2527 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation for a prosecutor to submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the person who performed the test.[1] While the court ruled that the then-common practice[2] of submitting these reports without testimony was unconstitutional, it also held that so called "notice-and-demand" statutes are constitutional. A state would not violate the Constitution through a "notice-and-demand" statute by both putting the defendant on notice that the prosecution would submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the scientist and also giving the defendant sufficient time to raise an objection.[3]
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