Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
CAAFLog is reporting that CAAF has granted the following issue in United States v. Blazier.
Whether, in light of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), Appellant was denied meaningful cross-examination of government witnesses in violation of his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation when the military judge did not compel the government to produce essential Brooks Law officials who handled Appellant’s urine samples and instead allowed the expert toxicologist to testify to non-admissible hearsay. See Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 2527 (2009).
I’m a happy man. I have been raising this issue in every urinalysis case I’ve done since Crawford. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to convince too many others to raise it. Finally CAAF is going to take a look at the issue. May well lose, but at least there’s a chance. You can’t win unless you raise the issue at trial.