Williams, Andrew Lee ( 2019 )

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
OF TEXAS
NO. PD-1199-17
ANDREW LEE WILLIAMS, Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
FROM THE FOURTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS
BRAZORIA COUNTY
W ALKER, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
DISSENTING OPINION
Today, this Court holds that a certificate of analysis that is missing information required by
Article 38.41 may nevertheless be in substantial compliance. Moreover, the majority maintains that
even if a certificate of analysis is missing mandatory information, the defendant is still required to
exercise or forfeit his constitutional rights in accordance with Article 38.41's pre-trial timeline. This
position is incompatible with the language and existence of § 3 of the statute. Accordingly, I
respectfully dissent.
The specific question in this case is whether this certificate of analysis substantially complied
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with Article 38.41. Because it omits several pieces of information required under § 3, it must fail to
substantially comply. Section 3 of Article 38.41 states that a certificate of analysis “must contain”
the following:
(1) the names of the analyst and the laboratory employing the analyst;
(2) a statement that the laboratory employing the analyst is accredited by a nationally
recognized board or association that accredits crime laboratories;
(3) a description of the analyst’s educational background, training, and experience;
(4) a statement that the analyst’s duties of employment included the analysis of
physical evidence for one or more law enforcement agencies;
(5) a description of the tests or procedures conducted by the analyst;
(6) a statement that the tests or procedures used were reliable and approved by the
laboratory employing the analyst; and
(7) the results of the analysis.1
A plain, reasonable reading of the statute makes it clear that the information included in the
affidavit is to be about a certain analyst. Every time the word analyst is used it is preceded by the
word the. The statute never once says an analyst. Use of the analyst instead of an analyst means the
statute is only concerned with a particular, specific analyst—not just any person capable of
analyzing. Specifically, the use of the analyst appears to be exclusively regarding the testing analyst.
The wording of subsection (5) is particularly probative as to the meaning of the statute. Subsection
(5) requires that the certificate of analysis must contain a description of the tests or procedures
conducted by the analyst. Obviously, the analyst in subsection (5) is the analyst who conducted the
tests or procedures. So it would follow that, since every time the word analyst is used in § 3 it is
1
TEX . CODE CRIM . PROC. Art. 38.41 (emphasis added).
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preceded by the word the, the entirety of § 3 is referring to the analyst who performed the tests or
procedures.
The subsections that unequivocally require the information to be from or about the testing
analyst are (3)-(6). Starting with subsection (3): why would the legislature write that the certificate
of analysis “must contain” the background, experience, and schooling of anyone other than the
testing analyst? Why would anyone else matter? There is no question that if the information of some
analyst from some other lab was included in the certificate, it would not substantially comply. It is
inconsequential, for example, to the results that some extraneous analyst employed over at Bayer,
went to a nice school, and has worked for eight years. A description of a random analyst’s
educational and work history is no less informative or relevant than that of a reviewing or
supervising analyst that just so happens to be employed at the lab where the test was actually
conducted. I cannot fathom a scenario where the Legislature would be adamant that an affidavit
include whether and for how long someone went to school and worked in this field unless it is the
person whose intelligence and experience actually come into play. Accordingly, the only person’s
background or ability that matters to the results is that of the testing analyst. It is untenable to hold
that including anyone else’s background or abilities could even come close to complying with this
subsection.
Now, for subsection (4), I cannot think of a single reason why a certificate of analysis would
need to contain a statement that it is one of the analyst’s duties to analyze physical evidence unless
the analyst happened to analyze some of the physical evidence in that case. It is unclear why anybody
would need to ensure that someone merely reviewing the results has an “analyzes physical evidence”
bullet point in their job description. In theory, reviewing analysts just need to know how to read and
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understand what the results mean. It truly makes no difference if, on occasion, they are tasked with
analyzing physical evidence unrelated to the evidence contained in the certificate. The defendant is
only interested in the fact that the one who did analyze the physical evidence was hired to do
so—and that it was not the janitor or some other individual employed at the lab that decided to try
their hand at forensic analysis that day. Again, it is inconsistent with the purpose of this statute to
suggest that a certificate of analysis could be in compliance with this statute by including information
from any person other than the testing analyst.
The purpose of this statute appears to be to provide a mechanism that would allow a
defendant to effectively agree to allow an analyst’s report to be automatically admitted in evidence
if the defendant is notified of the State’s intention to do so within a specified time limit, the notice
contains all seven of the statute’s requirements, and the defendant does not object to the admission
of the report within a statutorily specified period of time. The underlying purpose seems to relieve
laboratory analysts from the task of going to court when the defendant is satisfied as to what the
analyst’s direct-examination testimony would consist of and that there would be no practical reason
for cross-examination. The only way these purposes can be met is to read the statute to require that
subsections (3)–(6) must relate to the analyst that performed the lab tests, and again, reading the
statute as a whole, I would hold that the statute does just that and is unambiguous in that respect.
Lastly, for subsections (5) and (6), nobody other than the testing analyst could provide a
description of the tests used or the reliability thereof. If a reviewing or supervising analyst provides
this information it would be purely general or completely speculative, which is not what “must [be]
contained.” This part of the statute is about the specific tests that were used by the analyst and
whether they were, specific to the results contained in the certificate of analysis, actually reliable.
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Including a description on the tests that an analyst generally conducts does not get us anywhere.
Moreover, procedures that are generally reliable are not informative to the actual reliability of the
proffered results. The purpose of this is not to make sure that the tests generally used are on par with
the scientific community and that the lab is generally producing sound results. The purpose is to
provide a descriptive account of how the tests were actually done by the analyst and a statement
regarding whether the results were obtained reliably, through accepted laboratory standards. Stating
that results are generally achieved by a reliable and approved method does not serve any purpose in
this scenario.
The certificate of analysis filed in the present case is missing at least four of the seven
requirements of § 3. The front page of the certificate of analysis states that Dr. Adams is familiar
with the general procedures of the lab, that her duties include the analysis of toxicological evidence,
and that her curriculum vitae is attached. She merely reviewed the results and was not present for
any of the actual testing. Nowhere does it have any background, experience, or educational
information about any of the analysts who were involved in the actual procedures. Nowhere does it
list that it was the duty of any of the testing analysts to analyze physical evidence. Nowhere does it
describe the tests that were actually performed. Nowhere does it state that what was actually
performed was reliable or approved. All that was included was a general, boilerplate statement that
the procedures and tests that were performed were reliable and approved by the lab. The most that
can be said of this certificate of analysis is that it spelled out the results and stated that the lab was
accredited. It did additionally include the testing analyst’s name, but you had to search deep in the
results for it, and it did not state that she was even employed at the lab.
The certificate of analysis that was filed in this case does not meet the minimum threshold
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of substantial compliance. As the majority explains, a certificate of analysis “must, at a bare
minimum, ‘substantially’ comply—that is, comply with all of the substantive requirements of
—Article 38.41. As we have already observed, the mandatory, substantive requirements of an Article
38.41 certificate are laid out in Section 3.”2 Thus if, a certificate of analysis is missing any of the
seven requirements it cannot be said to substantially comply. The majority even concedes that
omitting information that must be contained under § 3 is the one way to guarantee that the certificate
of analysis will fail to substantially comply.3
A certificate of analysis, such as this one, that does not substantially comply with the statute
cannot trigger a timer for a defendant to forfeit his constitutional rights. This is true even if it is
timely filed. Nevertheless, the majority essentially holds that because something was timely filed that
mostly resembled a compliant certificate of analysis, the defendant was on notice to object or forfeit
his rights before trial. The majority’s position would essentially permit any person—who maybe just
so happened to glance at the forensic results—to scribble their personal details on any piece of paper,
get it notarized, and staple it to some forensic results and thereafter require the defendant to make
a decision whether he wants to forfeit his constitutional rights. Why even require anything in § 3 at
all if a defendant is still going to be required to make a pre-trial demand for the analyst’s live
testimony simply because something partially on par with the mandatory requirements of § 3 was
filed alongside forensic results? Why not just write a statute where only the results need to be filed?
It is inconceivable to hold a defendant accountable to an invalid affidavit, regardless of the fact that
it was filed on time. That flies in the face of the entire existence of § 3.
2
Majority Op. at 13.
3
Id. at 15.
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The certificate of analysis is required to include at least seven pieces of information. In this
case, it—at best— included three. There is no way this certificate of analysis can comply with Article
38.41 if it includes less than half of the information required. A certificate of analysis that fails to
substantially comply cannot trigger the statute’s timer and require the defendant to exercise or forfeit
his constitutional rights before trial. That completely ignores the presence and purpose of § 3 in the
statute. Therefore, in my opinion, Williams was under no obligation to waive his objection before
trial. His objection at trial was valid and should not have been overruled. Respectfully, I dissent.
Filed: October 9, 2019
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