public record

Paul Lewis Hayes was indicted by a Fayette County, Ky., grand jury on a charge of uttering a forged instrument in the amount of $88.30. This offense was then punishable by a term of 2 to 10 years in prison. After arraignment, Hayes, his retained counsel, and the Commonwealth’s Attorney met in the presence of the Clerk of the Court to discuss a possible plea agreement. During these conferences the prosecutor offered to recommend a sentence of five years in prison if Hayes would plead guilty to the indictment. He also said that if Hayes did not plead guilty, he would return to the grand jury to seek an indictment under the Kentucky Habitual Criminal Act. This would subject Hayes to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment by reason of his two prior felony convictions. Hayes chose not to plead guilty. The prosecutor obtained an indictment charging him under the Habitual Criminal Act. The recidivist charge was fully justified by the evidence. The prosecutor possessed this evidence at the time of the original indictment. Hayes’ refusal to plead guilty led to the habitual criminal indictment. A jury found Hayes guilty on the principal charge. In a separate proceeding the jury found that he had twice before been convicted of felonies. He was sentenced to a life term in the penitentiary. The Kentucky Court of Appeals rejected Hayes’ constitutional objections to the enhanced sentence in an unpublished opinion. On Hayes’ petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky denied the writ. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the District Court’s judgment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider a constitutional question of importance in the administration of criminal justice.

In 2001 Boston police officers received a tip that a Kmart employee was engaging in suspicious activity involving repeated short trips in a blue sedan. Officers set up surveillance in the parking lot, observed the described sequence of events, detained the employee upon his return, and discovered four clear plastic bags containing a substance resembling cocaine. The officers then arrested the two men in the car, one of whom was petitioner Luis Melendez-Diaz. The officers placed all three suspects in a police cruiser. During the short drive to the police station the officers observed their passengers fidgeting and making furtive movements in the back of the car. After depositing the men at the station they searched the police cruiser and found a plastic bag containing nineteen smaller bags hidden in the partition between the front and back seats. The officers submitted the seized substances to the State Laboratory Institute of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which was required by law to conduct chemical analysis upon police request. Analysts at the laboratory performed the tests on November 28, 2001, and prepared three certificates of analysis that reported the weight of the bags and stated that the substance was found to contain cocaine. Each certificate was sworn before a notary public by the analysts, as required under Massachusetts law, and reprinted the statutory provision making the certificates prima facie evidence of the composition, quality, and net weight of the narcotic analyzed. Melendez-Diaz was charged with distributing cocaine and trafficking in cocaine in an amount between 14 and 28 grams. At trial the prosecution introduced the bags seized from the codefendant and from the cruiser along with the three certificates. Petitioner objected to admission of the certificates, asserting that Crawford v. Washington required the analysts to testify in person. The trial court overruled the objection and admitted the certificates pursuant to the state statute. The jury found Melendez-Diaz guilty. He appealed, contending that admission of the certificates violated his Sixth Amendment right to be confronted with the witnesses against him. The Appeals Court of Massachusetts affirmed the convictions, relying on a prior decision of the Supreme Judicial Court that had held forensic analysts are not subject to confrontation. The Supreme Judicial Court denied review, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.