Supreme Court rules in Boston drug case

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

The US Supreme Court, in a ruling that stemmed from a Boston drug case, held today that criminal defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine forensic experts who prepare laboratory reports on illegal drugs and other evidence used at trial.

By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that defendants have a right to confront witnesses against them extended to forensic analysis, such as typically routine reports that a powder seized by police was cocaine.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, who had argued before the court that the confrontation clause did not apply to such evidence, predicted that the ruling would result in accused drug dealers walking free. She said the state simply does not have enough laboratory analysts to testify in the thousands of drug cases handled by the judiciary each year, mostly in the district courts, if defendants seek to cross-examine them. If no experts are available to testify, she said, defendants will undoubtedly ask judges to dismiss their cases.

"There will be drug dealers who will not be punished," she said. "They will walk out of court." The ruling applies to state courts and federal courts throughout the country.