Opinion ID: 788327
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Brady claim and missing evidence instruction

Text: 26 Stewart also argues that his attorney's performance was deficient because she failed to assert a Brady violation or request a missing evidence jury instruction regarding the partial erasure of the surveillance videotape. A claim that the government failed to preserve evidence is not governed by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) but, rather, by the more rigorous standard established in Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 56-58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). This requires the defendant to demonstrate: (1) bad faith on the part of the government; (2) that the exculpatory value of the evidence was apparent before the evidence was destroyed; and (3) that the evidence was of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. United States v. Aldaco, 201 F.3d 979, 982-83 (7th Cir.2000) (quoting United States v. Watts, 29 F.3d 287, 289-90 (7th Cir.1994)). 27 On this aspect of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim Stewart is boxed in by his election to assert the claim on direct review rather than in a § 2255 collateral proceeding. There is no evidence in the record about the circumstances surrounding the partial erasure of the videotape, the content of what was erased, and the nature and quality of the images that remained on the tape. We have no record upon which to evaluate the defense attorney's decision to abandon the issue of the partially erased videotape. The record reflects only that she raised the subject of the videotape with the district court when the government rested its case, and then asked for a recess to confer with Stewart. When court resumed, Stewart's attorney rested the defense case without introducing any evidence. Without a supplementary evidentiary record, Stewart cannot carry his burden of demonstrating that his attorney mishandled the issue of the videotape. 28