April 29, 2011, the Appellate Division in State v. Rehmann held that the Confrontation Clause of the United States Constitution requires that the State produce the person who actually performed the forensic test, or, as in this case, the person who witnesses the test being performed, and certify that all the proper steps were performed, before an laboratory report will be admitted into evidence.
In this case the State proffered the testimony of a State lab technician in a DWI blood case for the purpose of presenting the defendant’s blood alcohol level (or BAC) was above the legal limit. However, the State in this case did not actually produce the technician who performed the gas chromatograph test but rather his supervisor who witnessed the test being performed. Under these circumstances the Court ruled that the supervisor was not a surrogate witness and because he actually witnessed the proper procedure being performed could accordingly testify without violating the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him.
Although this was a narrow ruling limited to the facts of this particular case, this case however reaffirmed the well stated rule of law in New Jersey that any lab report is inadmissible hearsay without the testimony of the forensic lab technician.
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