Opinion ID: 186375
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial Court's Denial of the Missing-Evidence Instruction

Text: 15 During the instruction conference, the Government objected to appellant's request for a missing-evidence instruction regarding the Government's failure to produce a copy of the stop sign citation. The prosecutor argued, among other things, that a copy of the citation was not peculiarly within the power of the Government to produce and could, in fact, be obtained by the defense from the Bureau of Traffic Adjudication or Superior Court. The defense argued that the citation was peculiarly within the power of the Government to produce, because the last testimony about the ticket was Officer Chumbley's statement that he gave it to someone in the Seventh District. Trial Tr. at 396. The court ruled that there was no basis for giving a missing-evidence instruction because, among other reasons, the ticket was not peculiarly within the power of the Government to produce.