United States v. Washington
2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 19931, 74 Fed. R. Serv. 332, 498 F.3d 225 (2007)
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Rule of Law:
Raw data generated by a scientific instrument, such as a gas chromatograph, are not considered statements made by the machine's operator. Therefore, an expert's testimony based on this data does not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right, even if the operator does not testify.
Facts:
- At 3:30 a.m. on January 3, 2004, Officer Gary Hatch observed Dwonne Washington driving a car approximately 30 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, swerving between the road and the shoulder.
- After police forced the car to stop, Washington was unresponsive to the officer's commands and stared disaffectedly straight ahead.
- Officer Hatch detected a "very strong smell of PCP" upon opening the car door.
- Washington admitted to Officer Hatch that he had "smoked a little something earlier."
- Officer Hatch took Washington to a hospital where Washington consented to have his blood drawn for testing.
- The blood sample was sent to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, where lab technicians used a gas chromatograph machine to analyze it.
- The machine produced approximately 20 pages of raw data and graphs indicating the presence of phencyclidine (PCP) and alcohol in the blood sample.
Procedural Posture:
- The government charged Dwonne Washington with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and unsafe operation of a vehicle.
- During a bench trial before a magistrate judge, Washington objected to the expert testimony of Dr. Barry Levine, arguing it was based on testimonial hearsay from non-testifying lab technicians in violation of the Confrontation Clause.
- The magistrate judge overruled the objection, admitted the testimony, and found Washington guilty.
- The magistrate judge sentenced Washington to 60 days' imprisonment.
- Washington appealed to the U.S. District Court, which affirmed the conviction.
- Washington then appealed the district court's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does the admission of an expert toxicologist's testimony, which is based on machine-generated blood analysis data, violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right when the laboratory technicians who operated the machine do not testify at trial?
Opinions:
Majority - Niemeyer, J.
No. The admission of the expert's testimony does not violate the Confrontation Clause because the underlying data from the machine does not constitute a testimonial statement by a witness. The court reasoned that the 'statements' about the blood's contents were made by the machine itself, not by the technicians who operated it. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(a), a 'statement' must be an assertion by a 'person,' and a machine is not a person. Therefore, the data is not hearsay and does not implicate the Confrontation Clause, which guarantees the right to confront human 'witnesses.' Any concerns regarding the machine's accuracy are issues of authentication under Rule 901, not confrontation. Furthermore, the court found the data was not 'testimonial' because it reported the present condition of the blood, not a past event, and the machine was indifferent to whether the analysis was for law enforcement or medical purposes.
Dissenting - Michael, J.
Yes. The admission of the expert's testimony violates the Confrontation Clause because the test results are testimonial statements attributable to the non-testifying lab technicians. The dissent argued that unlike a fully automated process like a fax timestamp, the blood analysis required significant and trained human input, making the resulting data a statement by the technicians. These statements were testimonial because the technicians would reasonably expect the results to be used for prosecution, given the sample was submitted by police for a DUI investigation. The primary purpose was to 'establish or prove past events'—Washington's intoxication while driving—relevant to a criminal prosecution. The dissent concluded that the defendant, not the court, has the right to decide whether cross-examining the technicians would be valuable to challenge the accuracy or integrity of the testing process.
Analysis:
This decision establishes a critical distinction between human assertions and machine-generated data for Confrontation Clause purposes. By classifying the output of scientific instruments as non-hearsay from a non-person (the machine), the court allows experts to testify about forensic findings without requiring the testimony of the technicians who performed the tests. This ruling streamlines the presentation of scientific evidence for the prosecution but is criticized for potentially shielding the testing process from scrutiny through cross-examination. It narrows the scope of what constitutes a 'witness' under the Sixth Amendment in an era of increasing technological involvement in evidence gathering.
