Opinion ID: 1228511
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: destruction of alleged material exculpatory evidence

Text: During the evening and early morning hours of October 12 and 13, 1975, respectively, the relevant days herein, all radio and telephone communications with both the Teton County Sheriff's Office and the Jackson Police Department were preserved by tape recording on a Magnasync Moviola Series 1700 Logging Tape Recording System. Pursuant to an order from Undersheriff Larry Gienapp on October 27, 1975, the tapes for the 12th and 13th were taken out of the Sheriff's evidence locker by Officer Gary Reach and given to Administrative Assistant Nora J. Tygum for erasure. Defendant Pack alleges this intentional erasure destroyed not only exculpatory evidence, but evidence material to his assertion of suggested influences in the prosecutrix's selection of his photograph in the photographic array. Based on this alleged destruction of material exculpatory evidence, defendant Pack argues that the denial by the trial court of his motion for dismissal of the information filed was error. We cannot agree. As specifically pointed out by the trial court in its denial of defendant's motion, all of the evidence presented concerning the contents of the destroyed tapes was to the effect that defendant's name was not mentioned in the presence of the prosecutrix, nor was there any evidence identified which could either be considered material to defendant's contentions or exculpatory of the defendant. The appellant has presented nothing in his appeal which would impeach this holding. He continues to merely say that it was possible that his name was used in a radio transmission in the presence of the prosecutrix, thus presenting a suggestive influence for her to select his photograph from the lineup. This, of course, assumes the prosecutrix saw his name on the back of his picture before she selected it, a fact which she denied. Even assuming the missing material may have in some way been relevant and material, its erasure would appear at best as harmless error in light of the other strong physical evidence sustaining defendant's conviction. Such was also the conclusion of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in its decision on a strikingly similar factual situation in Commonwealth v. Bowes, 233 Pa.Super. 71, 335 A.2d 718 (1975). In that decision, the Pennsylvania court held that although admission into evidence of the partially erased tape recording of defendant's confession was error, such error stood harmless considering that the jury was informed of the contents of the erasure by live testimony, and in light of the other strong physical testimonial evidence sustaining the conviction. Even an error of constitutional magnitude may be found harmless under such conditions. Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972); Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969). Denial by the trial court of Pack's motion to dismiss the information was, therefore, not error.