Opinion ID: 2581358
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Preservation of Footprint Evidence

Text: When police, responding to the 911 emergency telephone call about Sadler, arrived at 2250 Menalto in East Palo Alto, there were footprints visible in the damp soil of the front yard. Although Detective Osborn asked the evidence technicians to photograph the prints, no photographs or casts were taken. Osborn compared one distinctive set of footprints leading up to the house to the shoes worn by Sadler, and concluded they were the same. That night, photographs were taken of the 11 occupants of the house, but those photographs were misplaced before trial. Defendant contends that the police failure to make casts or take photographs of the footprints and to retain photographs of the Menalto house occupants deprived him of exculpatory evidence, violated his right to due process under our state and federal Constitutions, and violated the Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the federal Constitution. Because defendant failed to raise this claim at trial, he is barred from doing so now. ( People v. Seaton, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 656, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 28 P.3d 175.) Moreover, the claim is without merit. The footprints themselves neither implicated nor exonerated defendant; the one set that was tentatively identified belonged to murder victim Sadler and indicated that he had walked up to the house at 2250 Menalto. The physical evidence supported the eyewitness testimony that Sadler was beaten to death in the street. Absent a showing that the police acted in bad faith in not preserving evidence potentially useful to defendant, there has been no denial of due process. ( Arizona v. Youngblood (1988) 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281; People v. Frye, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 943, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 25, 959 P.2d 183.) The testimony of Detective Osborn demonstrates that he tried to document evidence of the footprints with photographs but that, through no fault of his own, they were not taken. As for the photographs that were taken of the house's 11 occupants but were found to be missing before trial, defendant has offered no suggestion that photographs of the persons found in the Menalto house some hours after Sadler's murder would exonerate him. In any event, the investigating officers took those photographs at the same time they compiled a list identifying the 11 occupants. That list was supplied to the defense and introduced at trial. Accordingly, defendant cannot show that the loss of the photographs precluded him from learning who was at the Menalto house after Sadler's murder. ( California v. Trombetta (1984) 467 U.S. 479, 489, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413.)