Commonwealth v. Melendez-Diaz

In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 129 S. Ct. 2527, 2532 (2009) (Melendez-Diaz), the United States Supreme *239Court concluded that a certificate of chemical analysis, sworn to by a State laboratory analyst and reporting the weight and chemical makeup of a seized substance, came within the class of testimonial statements subject to the protections of the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Consequently, the certificate was inadmissable as evidence in a criminal trial in the absence of testimony from the analyst who performed the underlying forensic…