Supremes Make Life a Little Easier for Drunk Drivers

But the Constitution is the Constitution, and they seem to be trying to uphold it:

The Supreme Court on Thursday put an extra burden on crime labs, declaring that a man accused of drunken driving has the right to demand that a lab technician testify in person about a blood test that showed he was impaired.

The 5-4 decision was the latest to extend the reach of a defendant's constitutional right "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." And once again, the outcome was driven by an unusual coalition of conservative and liberal justices.

 Two years ago, the court said a crime lab technician was a witness for the prosecution and, therefore, must be available to testify. In Thursday's decision, the court went a step further, saying it will not suffice to send any technician or lab analyst who can explain the testing. Rather, the prosecution must supply the same technician who conducted the blood test and signed to certify the result.

"We hold that surrogate testimony … does not meet the constitutional requirement," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court majority, which also included Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The Constitution does not permit shortcuts, the court said, and in many cases, a crime lab report is the prosecution's strongest evidence.

Not the combination of justices that made the decision - who would have thought Scalia and Thomas would ever side with Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan and against Roberts, Alito, Kennedy and Breyer?

So, based on this decision, wouldn't there be a logical challenge to red light or speed camera tickets? After all, cameras require proxy testimony from someone who didn't actually witness the violation.