The Supreme Court says that the lab analyst who testifies at a criminal trial must be the one who performed or witnessed the lab tests in question, the latest decision bolstering the constitutional requirement that defendants be able to confront witnesses against them.

In a 5-4 decision Thursday, the court ruled in favor of a New Mexico man convicted of drunken driving who objected when the supervisor of a lab analyst testified about a lab report showing the amount of alcohol in his blood.

The ruling reversed a New Mexico Supreme Court decision in the state's favor.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn declared he had diplomatic immunity and complained that his handcuffs were too tight after he was taken into custody on allegations he tried to rape a Manhattan hotel maid, court documents show.

The documents filed Thursday by prosecutors provide a chronology of statements leading to the arrest of the former leader of the International Monetary Fund, who was taken into custody by Port Authority police at John F. Kennedy International Airport on May 14 as he tried to leave on a Paris-bound flight.

One of his attorneys, Benjamin Brafman, said Thursday he had no comment.

Strauss-Kahn, who is free on $1 million bail under house arrest at a luxury townhouse, maintains he did not attack the maid at Sofitel hotel.

The new court documents describe Strauss-Kahn seemingly confused as he is taken into custody.

"I have diplomatic immunity," Strauss-Kahn told officers, according to the documents. "... Can I speak with someone from the French consulate? What is this about?"

He asked detectives whether he needs an attorney, responded to questions about whether he is hungry (at one point saying he would "like some eggs") and complained about his handcuffs, the documents say.

"Manhattan detectives need to speak with you about an incident in a hotel room," responded one detective as they go from the airport to the Manhattan Special Victims Squad on May 14 at about 5:15 p.m., the documents say.

A divided Supreme Court said Thursday that police and courts must consider a child's age when examining whether a boy or girl is in custody, a move the court's liberals called "common sense" but the conservatives called an "extreme makeover" of Miranda rights.

The 5-4 decision came in a case in which police obtained a confession from a seventh-grade special education student while questioning him at school about a rash of break-ins in Chapel Hill, N.C., without reading him his Miranda rights, telling him he could leave or call his relatives.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former prosecutor who wrote the opinion, said police have to consider the child's age before talking to him or her about a crime. Courts also have to take the child's age into consideration when deciding whether that confession can be used in court, she said.

"It is beyond dispute that children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same circumstances would feel free to leave," Sotomayor said, adding there was no reason for "police officers or courts to blind themselves to that commonsense reality."

But Justice Samuel Alito, also a former prosecutor, said the point of Miranda was that police would have clear, objective guidelines to follow. Opening the door to considering age likely will mean that other characteristics could soon be added to the list, such as educational level, I.Q. and cultural background, he said.

"Safeguarding the constitutional rights of minors does not require the extreme makeover of Miranda that today's decision may portend," Alito said in the dissent.

The special education student, known as JDB in court papers, was 13 in 2005 when he confessed while interviewed by police and school officials in a closed room at his school.

The Supreme Court will let two West Virginia residents revive a lawsuit against Bayer AG over its anti-cholesterol drug Baycol, which was withdrawn from the market in 2001 after reports of a severe and sometimes fatal muscle disorder.

The high court on Thursday unanimously agreed to let Kevin Smith and Shirley Sperlazza's class-action lawsuit against Bayer go forward.

The 8th U.S. Court of Appeals had thrown out their lawsuit out after a federal judge overseeing multistate litigation against Bayer refused to let other West Virginians file a similar class-action lawsuit against the corporation.

The high court said that decision was incorrect.

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the conviction of Vanessa Decker, who was given a 4-year suspended sentence in 2008 on a charge of exploiting her own mother.

Last year, the state Court of Appeals upheld Decker's conviction.

Decker was convicted in Clay County of felony exploitation of a vulnerable adult for taking $4,120 from her mother's bank account between November 2005 and April 2007. She said she had permission.

The Supreme Court says a jury instruction given by the trial judge conflicted with Decker's indictment. The court said the failure of the judge to correct the mistake required the conviction to be overturned.

Decker had argued the law under which she was convicted was vague. The Supreme Court did not discuss that issue.

The Supreme Court has upheld the criminal conviction of an Alabama man even though the justices agreed the police search that produced incriminating evidence was illegal.

The high court's 7-2 ruling Thursday against Willie Gene Davis highlighted an unusual series of events. Between Davis' arrest and a federal appeals court ruling affirming his conviction, the Supreme Court put new limits on the ability of police to search a vehicle immediately after a suspect is arrested.

The question for the justices was whether to invoke the exclusionary rule that generally requires evidence to be suppressed if it results from a violation of a suspect's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. In this case, the court said, the good-faith efforts of the officers overrode that concern.