09-10876 Bullcoming v. New Mexico

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Motor Vehicles
OWI; Confrontation Clause

The Confrontation Clause does not permit the prosecution to introduce a forensic laboratory report containing a testimonial certification, made in order to prove a fact at a criminal trial, through the in-court testimony of an analyst who did not sign the certification or personally perform or observe the performance of the test reported in the certification.

Melendez-Diaz precluded the State’s argument that introduction of the SLD report did not implicate the Confrontation Clause because the report is nontestimonial. Like the certificates in Melendez-Diaz, the SLD report is undoubtedly an “affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact” in a criminal proceeding. 557 U. S., at ___. Created solely for an “evidentiary purpose,” id., at ___, the report ranks as testimonial. In all material respects, the SLD report resembles the certificates in Melendez-Diaz. Here, as there, an officer provided seized evidence to a state laboratory required by law to assist in police investigations. Like the Melendez-Diaz analysts, Caylor tested the evidence and prepared a certificate concerning the result of his analysis. And like the Melendez-Diaz certificates, Caylor’s report here is “formalized” in a signed document, Davis, 547 U. S., at 837, n. 2. Also noteworthy, the SLD report form contains a legend referring to municipal and magistrate courts’ rules that provide for the admission of certified blood-alcohol analyses. Thus, although the SLD report was not notarized, the formalities attending the report were more than adequate to qualify Caylor’s assertions as testimonial.

226 P. 3d 1, reversed and remanded.

09-10876 Bullcoming v. New Mexico

Ginsburg, J.; Sotomayor, J., concurring; Kennedy, J., dissenting.

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