Whether the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment permits the prosecution in a criminal trial to present testimony by a substitute expert conveying the testimonial statements of a non-testifying forensic analyst, on the grounds that (a) the testifying expert offers some independent opinion and the analyst’s statements are offered not for their truth but to explain the expert’s opinion, and (b) the defendant did not independently seek to subpoena the analyst.

Held:

U.S. Supreme Court rejects the fiction that an expert witness’s recitation of the findings of a non-testifying lab analyst comes in only for the “basis” of the testifying expert’s opinion, rather than for the truth of those underlying facts. “When an expert witness conveys an absent analyst’s statements in support of his opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come into evidence for their truth.” “[I]f those statements are testimonial too . . . the Confrontation Clause will bar their admission.” This holding roughly parallels the California Supreme Court’s opinion in People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665.

This case was vacated and remanded on 6/21/2024.