Opinion ID: 1485008
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: McNair requests a missing evidence instruction for the garage videotape.

Text: Before the second trial, McNair requested a missing evidence instruction [1] regarding the State's failure to collect and preserve the surveillance videotape. At a hearing on the issue, Walker testified on voir dire that he could not recall viewing the videotape. But Walker did recall being told that there was nothing useful, because the footage showed people running in the garage stairwell and was blurry. Silva, who remembered watching the videotape with Walker, testified that the footage was not very good and that neither he, nor Walker, could identify the perpetrator from the video. Based on these testimonies, the trial judge held that the videotape had no evidentiary value, and declined to instruct the jury to assume that the missing videotape would have tended to prove that McNair was not guilty.