Crime labs across the U. S. in need of reform?

In yesterday's high court ruling that opens the door to direct examination of crime lab personnel, Justice Antonin Scalia quipped that, "the sky will not fall after today's decision."
“The confrontation clause may make the prosecution of criminals more burdensome, but that is equally true of the right to trial by jury and the privilege against self-incrimination,” Justice Scalia wrote for a 5-4 majority in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The decision means that crime lab evidence can't be used against a defendant at trial unless the analysts who evaluate the evidence are subject to cross examination. Four dissenting justices said that scientific evidence should be treated differently than, say, statements from witnesses to a crime. They warned that the decision would subject the nation’s criminal justice system to “a crushing burden” and that it means “guilty defendants will go free, on the most technical grounds.”
Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford who represented Mr. Melendez-Diaz, said perhaps a third of all states follow procedures that comply with Thursday’s decision. What that will mean as a practical matter remains to be seen. Criminal defense lawyers may still stipulate that crime lab reports are accurate, fearing that live testimony will only underscore their clients’ guilt. Others may insist on testimony in the hope that the analyst will be unavailable. Still others will now be able to prove that an analyst’s conclusion was mistaken or inconclusive. In February, the National Academy of Sciences issued a sweeping critique of the nation’s crime labs. It concluded, for instance, that forensic scientists for law enforcement agencies “sometimes face pressure to sacrifice appropriate methodology for the sake of expediency.”


Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/26lab.html?_r=2&hp