Justice Kagan continued in relevant part: Arizona law enforcement officers found petitioner Jason Smith with a large quantity of what appeared to be drugs and drug-related items. Smith was charged with various drug offenses, and the State sent the seized items to a crime lab for scientific analysis. Analyst Elizabeth Rast ran forensic tests on the items and concluded that they contained usable quantities of methamphetamine, marijuana, and cannabis. Rast prepared a set of typed notes and a signed report about the testing. The State originally planned for Rast to testify about those matters at Smith’s trial, but Rast stopped working at the lab prior to trial. So the State substituted another analyst, Greggory Longoni, to “provide an independent opinion on the drug testing performed by Elizabeth Rast.”
At trial, Longoni conveyed to the jury what Rast’s records revealed about her testing, before offering his “independent opinion” of each item’s identity. Smith was convicted. On appeal, he argued that the State’s use of a substitute expert to convey the substance of Rast’s materials violated his Confrontation Clause rights. The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Smith’s challenge, holding that Longoni could constitutionally present his own expert opinions based on his review of Rast’s work because her statements were then used only to show the basis of his opinion and not to prove their truth.
When an expert conveys an absent analyst’s statements in support of the expert’s opinion, and the statements provide that support only if true, then the statements come into evidence for their truth. The parties agree that Smith’s confrontation claim can succeed only if Rast’s statements came into evidence for their truth. Smith argues that the condition is satisfied here because her statements were conveyed, via Longoni’s testimony, to establish that what she said happened in the lab did in fact happen. The State contends that Rast’s statements came into evidence not for their truth, but to “show the basis” of Longoni’s independent opinion. It emphasizes that Arizona’s Rules of Evidence authorize the admission of such statements for that limited purpose. Evidentiary rules, however, do not control the inquiry into whether a statement is admitted for its truth. Instead, courts must conduct an independent analysis of that question.
This is an example of a state legislature enacting a law that clearly runs afoul of the Constitution. Our Courts are required to give deference to the Legislature out of “separation of power” concerns. The enactment of laws like this create inefficiency in the administration of justice and call into question if the legislature is entitled to deference from the judiciary.
