The paradox is that he's skeptical of the crime labs, which have been used in convicting/sentencing people to death, yet in the quote he appears to state that t

The paradox is that he's skeptical of the crime labs, which have been used in convicting/sentencing people to death, yet in the quote he appears to state that there have never been wrongful death sentence convictions because of tainted/false evidence. The paradox is between Scalia's statements and is actually pretty clear. But you do have to put the entire paragraph and read the link to understand the context. “It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby.” “Two years ago, Scalia spoke for a 5-4 majority reversing the conviction of an alleged cocaine dealer from Massachusetts because prosecutors did not bring to court a lab analyst whose test confirmed the bags of white powder were indeed cocaine. The dissenters, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said a lab technician who conducts a test is not a "witness" in the ordinary sense of the term.“ Based on Scalia's constitutional views (a very literal interpretation), I'd say it probably isn't really a paradox to him, but an outside observer might see the results as conflicting. (I mean, obviously it wasn't going to be a literal paradox, that's not what paradoxically is taken to mean colloquially).