Opinion ID: 3216831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Missing-Evidence Instructions

Text: Another government witness, Mauricio Parra Diaz, testified to being shown photographs at the U.S. Embassy in Colombia by the DEA and selecting Martinez Vega as “Chiguiro.” Outside the presence of the jury, DEA Special Agents Cesar Medina and Daniel Dyer testified that a photo array had been shown to numerous potential witnesses in Colombia. However, the agents had no specific recollection of the people who were shown the array, and the Government kept no record of that information or of any identifications the 23 witnesses made. In fact, Medina confirmed that “the understanding” within his office was that he “would keep no record of this,” but simply call Dyer in the event of an identification, J.A. 1000, and Dyer, for his part, acknowledged that he did not make records of such calls. Medina also testified that the photo array he used was kept in a folder in the DEA’s Bogotá Country Office, but that he believed it had since been shredded because the office “shred[s] the photo arrays, because it is not needed any more for that particular interview [sic].” Id. In light of that testimony, Martinez Vega requested the following jury instruction: Both Ms. Ortiz and Mr. Parra Diaz have testified that they were shown photographs of individuals at the United States Embassy in Bogota and that they identified a photograph of Martinez Vega as that of the person they have each identified as “Chiguiro.” The United States has no records or other information that would corroborate this testimony. If photographs were shown to the witnesses for purposes of identification, the Government would be obligated to preserve such photographs, as well as any record of what the witnesses may have said at the time of their identifications. The United States has no such photographs or records. J.A. 1054. A third witness, Luis Restrepo, testified that he was shown photographs that “included . . . Mr. Chiguiro,” whom he identified in court as Martinez Vega. J.A. 1191. Garrido testified that he showed Restrepo a photo array depicting Martinez Vega and that he “thought [the photos] were filed in 24 the case folder.” Id. at 1362. Again, no such photographs were produced by the Government. Martinez Vega requested another instruction regarding Restrepo’s identification: If photographs shown to Mr. Restrepo in this case were only within the power of the government to produce, and were not produced by the government, and their absence has not been sufficiently explained, then you may, if you deem it appropriate, infer that the photographs would have been unfavorable to the government. J.A. 1054–55. The district court declined to give either instruction, citing no evidence of bad faith on the part of the Government regarding the loss or destruction of the photographs and the fact that “these were not really identification procedures” in which the “only way [the witnesses] could ever identify” Martinez Vega was through the photo array. Id. at 1698–1700. The district court’s decision withholding a missingevidence instruction is reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. West, 393 F.3d 1302, 1309 (D.C. Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds by Burgess v. United States, 553 U.S. 124 (2008); see also United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 1384, 1404 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (describing standard of review for denial of analogous missing-witness instruction). A missing-evidence instruction “is appropriate if it is peculiarly within the power of one party to produce the evidence and the evidence would elucidate a disputed transaction.” West, 393 F.3d at 1309; see also United States v. Williams, 113 F.3d 243, 245 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (foundation for analogous missing-witness instruction). “When these two requirements are met, jurors may be instructed that the 25 controlling party’s failure to produce the evidence permits them to draw the inference that the evidence would have been unfavorable to that party.” Id. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500, and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), all impose duties on the Government to disclose certain materials and evidence to criminal defendants. In United States v. Bryant, 439 F.2d 642 (D.C. Cir. 1971), this court held that those duties to disclose included a correlative duty to preserve that evidence in the first place, since “[o]nly if evidence is carefully preserved during the early stages of investigation will disclosure be possible later,” id. at 651. Accordingly, Bryant instructed that the Government must “promulgate[], enforce[] and attempt[] in good faith to follow rigorous and systematic procedures designed to preserve all discoverable evidence gathered in the course of a criminal investigation,” or else risk the imposition of sanctions “for non-disclosure based on loss of evidence.” Id. at 652. Martinez Vega argues that, under Bryant, the Government was obligated to retain the photographs used in the witness identifications, as well as verbatim records of any statements the witnesses may have made at the time. The problem for Martinez Vega is that the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988), narrowed the Government’s constitutional obligations regarding the preservation of evidence. Specifically, the Court held that “the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted in Brady, makes the good or bad faith of the State irrelevant when the State fails to disclose to the defendant material exculpatory evidence.” Id. at 57. But if “no more can be said” about the evidence “than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant,” there is no denial of due process 26 unless a criminal defendant can demonstrate the Government’s bad faith. Id. at 57–58. Youngblood thus confines the Due Process Clause to superintending only those cases in which the missing evidence is material and exculpatory or in which “the police themselves by their conduct indicate that the evidence could form a basis for exonerating the defendant.” Id. at 58. Following Youngblood, this court has held that Bryant, at least with respect to due process claims based on missing evidence the exculpatory value of which is unclear, is “no longer good law.” In re Sealed Case, 99 F.3d 1175, 1178 (D.C. Cir. 1996); see also United States v. McKie, 951 F.2d 399, 403 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (rejecting reliance on Bryant because “due process claims . . . are now governed by the standards enunciated in Arizona v. Youngblood”). Martinez Vega nonetheless argues that Bryant provides the relevant standard because his objection is grounded not in the general protections of the Due Process Clause, but in the Government’s specific obligations under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16, the Jencks Act, and Brady. 7 Alternatively, Martinez Vega contends that, even under Youngblood, missing-evidence instructions were warranted because the Government’s bad faith can be inferred. Specifically, despite every incentive to maintain careful records of the identifications for subsequent use at trial, the 7 Whether Youngblood forecloses the application of Bryant in the context of Jencks Act claims is unsettled. See McKie, 951 F.2d at 403 (leaving unaddressed “the continuing vitality of Bryant in its original context regarding claims under the Jencks Act”). But see United States v. Thomas, 97 F.3d 1499, 1503 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (noting that “the actual holding in [Bryant] did not rest on the Jencks Act” since “the court did not decide that the missing [evidence] constituted a Jencks Act statement”). 27 DEA agents kept no such documentation. Martinez Vega emphasizes that the exculpatory value of the untested physical evidence in Youngblood was unknown to the agents. See 488 U.S. 56 n. (noting that the defendant “has not shown that the police knew the [missing evidence] would have exculpated him when they failed to” preserve it). Here, by contrast, the agents necessarily knew the results of their photo-array presentations and thus had actual knowledge whether such documents were actually (and not just potentially) exculpatory. The conspicuous absence of evidence with clearly “knowable” exculpatory value, Martinez Vega concludes, points strongly to bad faith, especially given that the same DEA agents apparently preserved marked photo arrays used in identification procedures conducted with other individuals. The Government’s failure to retain records for witness identifications—records for which the inculpatory or exculpatory value seems obvious—is troubling. But even assuming Youngblood applies, the erroneous denial of a missing-evidence instruction will not require reversal if the error is harmless. See United States v. Glenn, 64 F.3d 706, 710 (D.C. Cir. 1995). And in that regard, Martinez Vega fails to identify how that mistake affected his defense or had a substantial and injurious effect on his trial. Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946). Indeed, Martinez Vega’s identity as “Chiguiro” was established by the testimony of multiple witnesses based on in-person observations and interactions, wholly independent of the missing photo arrays. See, e.g., supra pp. 21-22. Accordingly, any error by the district court in declining to issue missing-evidence instructions was harmless. 28