Opinion ID: 2382158
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Missing Evidence Jury Instruction

Text: In Maryland, analysis of the denial of a request for a missing evidence instruction begins with the recognition that a trial judge has a duty, upon request in a criminal case, to instruct the jury on the applicable law. Maryland Rule 4-325(c) provides in pertinent part: The court may, and at the request of any party shall, instruct the jury as to the applicable law and the extent to which the instructions are binding.... The court need not grant a requested instruction if the matter is fairly covered by instructions actually given. This Court has interpreted Rule 4-325(c) as requir[ing] the trial court to give a requested instruction under the following circumstances: (1) the requested instruction is a correct statement of the law; (2) the requested instruction is applicable under the facts of the case; and (3) the content of the requested instruction was not fairly covered elsewhere in the jury instruction actually given. Ware v. State, 348 Md. 19, 58, 702 A.2d 699, 718 (1997); see also Mack v. State, 300 Md. 583, 592, 479 A.2d 1344, 1348 (1984). Maryland Rule 4-325(c) imposes a requirement that instructions be given in respect to the applicable law in a case. It does not apply to factual matters or inferences of fact. Instructions as to facts and inferences of fact are normally not required. When a party fails to produce evidence, an inference may be made against it. Many inferences, however, may be drawn from a missing piece of evidence and emphasis of one possible inference out of all the rest by a trial judge can be devastatingly influential upon a jury although unintentionally so. Yuen v. State, 43 Md.App. 109, 114, 403 A.2d 819, 823 (1979). As this Court has stated in the past in regard to missing witness instructions, when the inference is communicated to the jury as part of the judge's binding jury instructions, [it] creat[es] the danger that the jury may give the inference undue weight. At the very least, a trial judge's jury instruction ... may have the effect of overemphasizing just one of the many proper inferences that a jury may draw. Davis v. State, 333 Md. 27, 52, 633 A.2d 867, 879 (1993). Because most evidentiary inferences are questions of fact, not questions of law, missing evidence instructions can be distinguished from instructions on the elements of the crime that a defendant is charged with, instructions on the affirmative defenses that a defendant may utilize, and from evidentiary presumptions that the law recognizes but, without an instruction, a jury would not recognize. Elements, affirmative defenses and certain presumptions relate to the requirement that a party meet a burden of proof that is set by a legal standard. A trial judge must give such an instruction if the evidence generates the right to it because it sets the legal guidelines for the jury to act effectively as the trier of fact. An evidentiary inference, such as a missing evidence or missing witness inference, however, is not based on a legal standard but on the individual facts from which inferences can be drawn and, in many instances, several inferences may be made from the same set of facts. A determination as to the presence of such inferences does not normally support a jury instruction. While supported instructions in respect to matters of law are required upon request, instructions as to evidentiary inferences normally are not. While the nature of missing evidence instructions is an issue of first impression in this Court, the Court of Special Appeals has interpreted such instructions on several occasions. The Court of Special Appeals noted in Bailey v. State, 63 Md.App. 594, 611-12, 493 A.2d 396, 404, cert. denied, 304 Md. 296, 498 A.2d 1183 (1985): No Maryland Court has ever held that a party is entitled to a missing evidence instruction, perhaps because, as we have noted in regard to missing witness instructions, The failure to grant an affirmative instruction does not remove the availability of the inference. As a consequence, whatever prejudice may usually come from not giving an advisory instruction is diminished, because the inferential thought process is still available. The prejudice is simply that such an inference is not given preferred instructional attention over any other inferences available from the testimony or absence of testimony. Possibly for that reason, judges hesitate to grant the missing witness instruction; they do not wish to emphasize one legitimate inference over all others which the jurors have been told are solely within their judgment. Yuen v. State, 43 Md.App. 109, 114, 403 A.2d 819[, 823] (1979). Moreover, as McCormick has noted: ... a practice which gives a party a right to such instruction is undesirable. If made a matter of right it is hard to escape the development of elaborate rules of law defining the circumstances when the right exists. To make it a matter of right has the advantage, it is true, of focusing past experience on the problem presented at the trial, but the cost here of complex rules far outweighs the gain. McCormick on Evidence, § 272 (2d Ed.1972). In Hall v. State, 69 Md.App. 37, 516 A.2d 204 (1986), cert. denied, 308 Md. 382, 519 A.2d 1283 (1987), the police failed to retain custody of a box found at the burglary scene from which Hall's fingerprint was lifted. [1] Hall requested a missing evidence instruction allowing the jury to infer that, because the State lost the box, its admission into evidence would have been favorable to Hall. The trial court denied the instruction and the Court of Special Appeals affirmed: [Hall] was not precluded from introducing evidence or arguing that there was some reasonable explanation for the presence of the box with his fingerprint at the crime scene. The trial court's instruction adequately covered the possibility of such alternative explanations. Accordingly, we find no error in the trial judge's refusal to give the additional instruction requested by [Hall]. Id. at 55, 516 A.2d at 213. Petitioner relies heavily on the Court of Special Appeals decision in State v. Wadlow, 93 Md.App. 260, 611 A.2d 1091 (1992), rev'd on other grounds, 335 Md. 122, 642 A.2d 213 (1994), arguing that, because that court allowed a missing evidence instruction to stand, such an instruction is the only appropriate remedy. In Wadlow, plastic bags of cocaine were seized by police and submitted for fingerprint analysis. At trial, the State could not locate the testing results. The trial court granted a missing evidence instruction. The Court of Special Appeals refused to reverse the trial court. [2] Wadlow did not hold that such an instruction is mandatory. Similarly, petitioner relies on State v. Werkheiser, 299 Md. 529, 474 A.2d 898 (1984). This case is distinguishable because Werkheiser relied upon this Court's interpretation of Maryland Code (1977, 1983 Cum.Supp.), section 16-205.1(d)(1)(iii) of the Transportation Article, which places a mandatory duty on police officers to obtain a blood sample from people who are unconscious or otherwise incapable of refusing to take a chemical test for blood alcohol content. [3] Werkheiser was convicted of driving while intoxicated. He was involved in a single-car accident, which rendered him unconscious. He remained in this unconscious state after he was taken to a hospital for his injuries. Although the officer investigating the accident had reasonable grounds to believe Werkheiser was intoxicated, he did not order or request the hospital staff to test his blood alcohol content. Because the police officer breached his duty as defined by § 16-205.1(d), this Court said that [i]n our view the appropriate remedy available to [Werkheiser] here would be to allow an inference that had the test been administered, the result thereof would have been favorable to him, to be weighed by the trier of fact along with all the other evidence presented, including the officer's reasons for not directing that the test be administered. Id. at 538, 474 A.2d at 903. Our holding in Werkheiser is limited to the facts of that case. This Court acknowledged that an inference may be an appropriate remedy under some circumstances, but we did not mandate that such inferences be presented in the form of a missing evidence instruction. These cases support the same general standard: When evidence is missing, apparently due to the act or omission of one of the parties, an inference that the evidence would have been unfavorable to that party may be appropriate. That is all that is required. This Court has never directly addressed the mandatory nature of a missing evidence instruction. We did say the following, however, in regards to the related missing witness inference: The missing witness inference may arise in one of two contexts. A party may request that a trial judge instruct the jury on the operation and availability of the inference where all the elements of the rule are present. See Christensen v. State, 274 Md. 133, 333 A.2d 45 (1975). Additionally, a party may wish to call the jury's attention to this inference directly during closing arguments. See Bruce [ v. State ], 318 Md. [706,] 729-31, 569 A.2d [1254,] 1266-67 [ (1990) ]. As a matter of necessity, the requirements of the missing witness rule must be more rigidly applied where the inference is used in the former context. Where a party raises the missing witness rule during closing argument, its use is just thatan argument. Davis v. State, 333 Md. 27, 52, 633 A.2d 867, 879 (1993). We now further refine the issue in the case sub judice by holding that, regardless of the evidence, a missing evidence instruction generally need not be given; the failure to give such an instruction is neither error nor an abuse of discretion. In the case sub judice, the trial judge denied petitioner's request for a missing evidence instruction; however, he did allow defense counsel to call the jury's attention to this inference. The trial judge's response to defense counsel's request for a missing evidence instruction was as follows: Tell me the case. I do not know of any case either. I mean, I think you can argue that they should have produced the [jacket], but I do not know that you are entitled to an instruction that says they are entitled to make some sort of negative inference from the failure to produce. .... Well, I hear your argument, and it is an interesting one. It is probably a creative one, but it is not persuasive to me, so I am not going to grant it. [Emphasis added.] The record reflects that the trial judge understood the law surrounding missing evidence instructions and correctly asserted that petitioner could make the argument, but was not entitled to such an instruction. He was correct. We note that although the trial judge denied petitioner's request for a missing evidence instruction, he did provide another instruction and allow defense counsel to call the jury's attention to the inference. The trial judge instructed the jury that in evaluating both the testimonial and physical evidence: [y]ou may draw any reasonable inferences or conclusions from the evidence that you believe to be justified by common sense and your own experiences. During closing argument defense counsel presented the following to the jury: Ask yourself why the coat isn't here. The drugs are here. The coat is not here. Now I think when I asked the officer where the coat is, I do not think he gave an answer as to where the coat is or why it is not here. Your recollection may be better than mine, but I do not think he said why the coat is not here. Evidencethe drugs are evidence. The coat would be evidence. And I asked him specifically, What is evidence, and would you agree with my definition, I said, [e]vidence would be any item which will be of use in a court proceeding to prove or disprove a fact under consideration. Well, that is clearly what we have in this case. Who does the coat belong to? They have charged him with possession of drugs that are concealed in a coat. The question is clearly, Who does the coat belong to? Did this man know what was in this coat? Clearly the coat is evidence, and there is no explanation for why it is not here today. And you can infer from the fact that the policeand you heardlet me back up. You heard that there are policies and procedures as to logging in and logging out evidence because evidence is obviously very important. It is part of the officer's job. He collects evidence. He investigates, and he keeps that evidence secured and preserved so if it goes to trial, jurors like yourselves can take a look at that evidence. And that is what was done with the drugs. Mr. [Perry] testified, and he was very good about that. He indicated that it is secured. It is brought in by an officer or technician. It is logged in. Every time that it is logged in or out of that vault, they make notations of that to preserve it, to secure it. Why wasn't the coat secured? Where is it? And I think you see in the paperwork here that the officer submitted, he wrote down on one of the forms miscellaneous property. He wrote down man's jacket and logged it. It was never logged out. What happened to it? You can infer from the State's failure to produce this key piece of evidence in this caseyou can make inferences, and you can infer that if a jacket or coat would be brought in here, that it would be unfavorable to the State. Perhaps if [petitioner] tried it on here today, it would not fit. Petitioner called the jury's attention to an apparent inference against the State. When [p]ossible relevant evidence [is] not introduced, or its absence explained, [it] may be used against the State. Henderson, 51 Md.App. at 153, 441 A.2d at 1115. Petitioner was able to: (a) present testimony that he was not seen wearing the jacket and that it was not his style; (b) question the police officer as to what happened to the jacket; and (c) argue to the jury to draw the adverse inference on their own based on the evidence in the case. Petitioner's ability to draw an inference against the State was thus satisfied. While some other jurisdictions hold that the determination whether to grant a missing witness instruction is left to the sound discretion of the trial judge, the result in those cases is generally in accord with the result we reach in the case at bar. The Court of Appeals of Alaska has held that a defendant was not entitled to a missing evidence instruction. Riney v. State, 935 P.2d 828, 839-40 (Alaska Ct.App.1997). In that case, the defendant argued that an audiotape of a police interview with a codefendant, which the police lost, should be presumed to contain evidence favorable to the defendant. The trial court denied the defendant's request for an instruction stating: [The tape] was lost; they don't know what happened to it. They looked for it, couldn't find it. They looked for it again[.]... They kept looking for it; they couldn't find it. The DA's own file shows [that] they were after it[.] There does not appear to be any evidence whatsoever from which a reasonable inference could be drawn that someone deliberately went out and destroyed [the codefendant's] taped statement. Id. at 839 (first four alterations in original). The Court of Appeals of Alaska affirmed. Id. at 840. The Delaware courts have reached similar conclusions: [4] In evaluating a challenge to the trial judge's decision to deny instructing the jury about evidence that is missing because it was lost or not properly preserved, this Court examines the claim in the context of the entire record. Viewing this record in its entirety ... the trial judge was correct in declining the defense request for a missing evidence instruction. Cook v. State, 728 A.2d 1173, 1176-77 (Del.Super.Ct.1999) (citations omitted). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held that a trial court has no obligation to grant missing evidence instructions. In United States v. Artero, 121 F.3d 1256 (9th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1133, 118 S.Ct. 1089, 140 L.Ed.2d 145 (1998), the defendant was convicted of smuggling marijuana across the TijuanaSan Diego border in the gas tank of his car. At trial, the government was unable to introduce the gas can that United States Customs had found in Artero's trunk because government personnel had lost the can. [5] Artero requested a missing evidence instruction, which was denied. Artero cites no authority for the proposition that the court was obligated to instruct the jury that it could draw inferences against the prosecution.... He cites United States v. Tory, 52 F.3d 207, 211 (9th Cir.1995), but all that held was that the defense should have been allowed to argue for an adverse inference. In the case at bar, the judge expressly provided that the defense counsel could argue for adverse inferences, which is all that Tory might require. Id. at 1259. Other courts throughout the country have similarly held that missing evidence instructions are not mandatory, although generally basing their decisions on an abuse of discretion standard. See United States v. Rose, 104 F.3d 1408, 1417 (1st Cir.) (holding there was no abuse of discretion by the trial judge in ruling that the failure to examine an ammunition clip found on defendant's person did not justify a missing evidence instruction), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1258, 117 S.Ct. 2424, 138 L.Ed.2d 187 (1997); Doe v. Johnson, 52 F.3d 1448, 1460 (7th Cir.1995) (noting, under Illinois law, that whether to use the missing witness/evidence instruction is within the sound discretion of the trial court.); Higgins v. Martin Marietta Corp., 752 F.2d 492, 496 (10th Cir.1985) (The refusal to give the negative inference instruction was within the sound discretion of the trial court.); United States v. Jennell, 749 F.2d 1302, 1308-09 (9th Cir.1984) (holding that there was no abuse of discretion when the district court refused to give the defendant's missing evidence instruction), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 837, 106 S.Ct. 114, 88 L.Ed.2d 93 (1985); Hughes v. United States, 633 A.2d 851, 852 (D.C.1993) (holding that the prosecution's failure to introduce evidence that defendant's fingerprints were on a ziplock bag of cocaine did not entitle defendant to a missing evidence instruction); State v. Jordan, 17 Wash.App. 542, 544, 564 P.2d 340, 341 (1977) (The State's failure to produce the evidence was not unexplained and the evidence was equally available to Jordan. The [missing evidence] instruction was properly refused.). The Supreme Court of Connecticut in State v. Malave, 250 Conn. 722, 737 A.2d 442 (1999), has gone so far as to abolish that state's required, common-law missing witness instruction, stating: For decades, this court ... has sanctioned a [missing witness] jury instruction that ... permits the inference that [a] witness, if called, would have exposed facts unfavorable to the party's cause.... .... ... [A]ny logical basis for the missing-witness inference [has been removed] by abolishing the practice of vouching.... Since neither party vouches for any witness's credibility, the failure of a party to call a witness cannot be treated as an evidentiary fact that permits any inference as to the content of the testimony of that witness. [(quoting State v. Brewer, 505 A.2d 774, 776-77 (Me.1985)).] .... ... We conclude that such a result cannot be justified now because the missing witness charge is no longer warranted in most situations, and in those few instances in which it might apply, a mandated judicial instruction over-emphasizes its usefulness to the jury. In the end it becomes an adversarial game refereed by judges, a game which generates much heat, sheds little light, and consumes scarce judicial resources. Id. at 728-29, 733, 739, 737 A.2d at 446, 449, 452 (third and fourth alterations in original). We have never directly mandated the giving of a missing evidence instruction, although we have, in the past, upheld a trial court's actions in regard to such an instruction. As we have indicated, trial judges, in proper circumstances, must instruct the jury on the applicable law. Generally, they need not instruct, even when requested or when facts might support the inference, on the presence or absence of most evidentiary inferences, including missing evidence inferences. To the extent that the opinions of the Court of Special Appeals are inconsistent with the holding of the case sub judice, they are overruled. To the extent our prior opinions in this area might be subject to different interpretations, they are herewith clarified. The trial judge did not err or abuse his discretion in declining to give the instruction. He was not required to so instruct the jury.