scientific method

On September 21, 1964, a federally insured bank in Eustace, Texas, was robbed when a man wearing a small strip of tape on each side of his face entered the bank, pointed a pistol at the female cashier and the vice president, and forced them to fill a pillowcase with the bank's money before driving away with an accomplice waiting in a stolen car outside. On March 23, 1965, an indictment was returned charging respondent Billy Joe Wade with conspiring to rob the bank and with the robbery itself. Wade was arrested on April 2, 1965, and counsel was appointed to represent him on April 26, 1965. Fifteen days later, on May 11, 1965, an FBI agent arranged a lineup at the local county courthouse without notifying Wade's counsel; Wade stood with five or six other prisoners, each wearing strips of tape on his face, and each was directed to say words such as "put the money in the bag." Both bank employees identified Wade at the lineup. At Wade's subsequent trial in federal district court, the two employees identified him in the courtroom on direct examination; on cross-examination they testified about their prior lineup identifications, and an FBI agent who observed the lineup also testified. Wade's counsel moved to strike the courtroom identifications on Fifth and Sixth Amendment grounds, but the motion was denied and Wade was convicted. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the conviction, holding that the lineup violated Wade's Sixth Amendment rights, and ordered a new trial at which the in-court identification evidence would be excluded. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

In August 2005, Donald Bullcoming drove a vehicle that rear-ended a pickup truck at an intersection in Farmington, New Mexico. After the truck driver noticed Bullcoming's bloodshot eyes and smelled alcohol on his breath, Bullcoming left the scene before police arrived. An officer later apprehended Bullcoming, who failed field sobriety tests and was arrested for driving while intoxicated. Because Bullcoming refused a breath test, police obtained a warrant for a blood-alcohol analysis, and a sample was drawn at a local hospital. The blood sample was sent to the New Mexico Department of Health's Scientific Laboratory Division. Forensic analyst Curtis Caylor tested the sample using a gas chromatograph machine and prepared a signed report certifying that Bullcoming's blood-alcohol concentration was 0.21 grams per hundred milliliters. The report included certifications that the sample seal was intact, procedures were followed, and no circumstances affected the sample's integrity. Bullcoming was charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated based on the report. At Bullcoming's jury trial in November 2005, the State announced that Caylor had been placed on unpaid leave and would not testify. Instead, the prosecution called another SLD analyst, Gerasimos Razatos, who had not participated in or observed the testing of Bullcoming's sample. Over defense objection, the trial court admitted Caylor's report as a business record. Razatos testified about laboratory procedures and the testing machine. The jury convicted Bullcoming of aggravated DWI. The New Mexico Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. While Bullcoming's appeal was pending before the New Mexico Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. The New Mexico Supreme Court acknowledged that the report was testimonial. It held that Razatos's testimony satisfied the Confrontation Clause because Caylor was a mere scrivener and Razatos qualified as an expert on the machine and procedures. The court affirmed the conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Confrontation Clause issue.

Plaintiffs in these consolidated actions were exposed to the drug diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, while in utero after their mothers ingested the drug during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage. Because multiple manufacturers produced DES according to the same formula, the plaintiffs could not identify the specific manufacturer responsible for the particular DES taken by their mothers. The plaintiffs filed suit in the San Francisco Superior Court against numerous drug manufacturers, with typical complaints naming 170 or more defendants. These cases were designated as complex litigation, with pretrial rulings issued in a lead case numbered 830-109 that would apply to at least 69 related actions. The complaints alleged that the defendants manufactured DES from the same formula, that the drug was unsafe for use in preventing miscarriage, and that the manufacturers knew it contained a cancer-causing substance yet failed to provide warnings to users or their physicians. In addition to claims for negligence, the plaintiffs asserted causes of action for strict liability based on design defects in DES, as well as breach of express and implied warranty and fraud. Where they could not identify the specific manufacturer, the plaintiffs sought to hold liable those defendants who had manufactured a substantial share of the DES market. The trial court sustained demurrers to the strict liability design defect claims. It ruled that breach of warranty and fraud claims could not be pursued under the market share theory, while also determining that any liability would be several rather than joint. The Court of Appeal reviewed the trial court's pretrial rulings through writ proceedings and affirmed those determinations. The Supreme Court of California granted review to consider the questions presented by the litigation.