Opinion ID: 1594325
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: admission of boykin's tennis shoes and associated blood test results after the state's negligent storage allowed potentially exculpatory evidence to deteriorate

Text: Boykin and Adams were arrested on June 20, 1986, in Mitchell, South Dakota. The Mitchell police took Boykin's tennis shoes, which exhibited a minute bloodstain, later determined by ABO testing to be human blood of Type A. Both Adams and Boykin have Type A blood, but Jensen, the victim, did not. The shoes and the associated bloodstain were not refrigerated until they were received at the Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Laboratory in Pierre on July 2, 1986. Rex Riis, a DCI criminologist, successfully performed the ABO tests on the bloodstain, but his attempt to carry out electrophoretic tests [6] on the bloodstain was a failure. Electrophoretic tests, if successful, could have determined whether the blood on the shoes was that of Adams or Boykin, or that of a third person. Boykin made a motion to exclude any testimony concerning the results of tests on the shoe bloodstain, asserting that the State's negligence in failing to refrigerate the shoes deprived him of potentially exculpatory evidence. It is clear that suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment where the evidence has been requested by the accused and is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good or bad faith of the prosecutor. State v. Clabaugh, 346 N.W.2d 448, 450 (S.D.1984) (citing Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963)). [7] [W]hen the Government has been responsible for delay resulting in a loss of evidence to the accused, we have recognized a constitutional violation only when loss of the evidence prejudiced the defense. United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 868, 102 S.Ct. 3440, 3447, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193, 1203 (1982). The extent of the government's duty to take affirmative steps to preserve evidence on behalf of criminal defendants is, however, not precisely clear. See California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984). Whenever potentially exculpatory evidence is permanently lost [through prosecutorial neglect or oversight], courts face the treacherous task of divining the import of materials whose contents are unknown and, very often, disputed. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 486, 104 S.Ct. at 2533, 81 L.Ed.2d at 421 (citing Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 102 S.Ct. 3440). Whatever duty the Constitution imposes on the States to preserve evidence, that duty must be limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect's defense. To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, see United States v. Agurs , 427 U.S. [97], at 109-110, 96 S.Ct. 2392, at 2400, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 [(1976)], evidence must both possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and be of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 488-89, 104 S.Ct. at 2534, 81 L.Ed.2d at 422 (footnote omitted). The difficulty Boykin faces here is proving the materiality of the allegedly lost evidence. According to Rex Riis, the criminologist, the bloodstain in question was so minute that electrophoretic testing was as likely to be unsuccessful through insufficiency of the amount of blood itself as through failure to freeze the sample. There is, according to this record, no showing that government mishandling deprived Boykin of any evidence because the blood sample was so small. As, at trial, the blood on the shoe could not be proven to be Adams' or Boykin's, and inasmuch as the time the shoe was bloodied could not be proven, the inculpatory inferences a jury could draw from the ABO test were very weak, as was brought out at trial. The lack of electrophoretic test results lessened the inculpatory effect of the ABO test results admitted at trial. Even were the blood actually proven to be Adams', the proximity of Adams and Boykin in the tent where they slept on the morning of the murder could explain the stain in a light favorable to Boykin. In a case where the State destroyed a blood sample in proving a bloodstain on the defendant's coat was Type A (as was the victim's), the Connecticut Supreme Court rejected the defendant's argument that he was prejudiced by the sample's destruction: His principal claim is that, with the more sophisticated testing procedures his expert would have used, the blood groupings might have been more narrowly confined. That the evidence was less significant than it might have been if different techniques had been used did not, as far as can be ascertained, prejudice the defendant any more than the state. Counsel had the opportunity to explain the limited probative value of this evidence to the jury and presumably did so. State v. Morrill, 197 Conn. 507, 549, 498 A.2d 76, 100 (1985). Morrill listed the following factors which courts should consider regarding the admissibility of lost or destroyed evidence: 1) The reason for the unavailability of the evidence; 2) the materiality of the evidence; 3) the likelihood of mistaken interpretation of it by witnesses or the jury; and 4) the prejudice to the defendant caused by the unavailability of the evidence. Morrill, id. Here, the State was potentially culpable in that the blood was negligently left unfrozen, but the defendant did not show electrophoretic testing was possible, absent the negligence, and two persons with Type A blood are involved, making the inculpatory inferences weaker. Considered in the context of this case, the failure to freeze the blood sample did not violate Boykin's right to due process. [A] defendant's due process rights are violated only if the undisclosed evidence creates a doubt which did not otherwise exist. State v. Sarabia, 118 Wis.2d 655, 670, 348 N.W.2d 527, 536 (1984) (interpreting United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976)). The lack of electrophoretic results here did not deprive Boykin of any reasonable doubt because the ABO evidence that was presented at trial was so doubtful itself. We therefore find no reversible error in the trial court's admission of the ABO blood test results. The alleged exonerating effect of any electrophoretic testing, considered in conjunction with the evidence produced at trial, would not have altered the ultimate verdict of the jury. State v. Cody, 323 N.W.2d 863, 868 (S.D.1982).