Opinion ID: 2810840
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disappearance of Evidence

Text: [¶9] Cote first argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the indictment based on the missing interview recording. Because the court correctly treated Cote’s motion as a motion to suppress,2 we review the factual findings underlying the trial court’s ruling for clear error and the court’s legal conclusions de novo. See State v. Drewry, 2008 ME 76, ¶ 19, 946 A.2d 981. [¶10] The court denied Cote’s motion solely because he did not prove that the State acted in bad faith in failing to preserve the recording. A showing of bad faith, however, is not always required for a defendant to prove that his right to a 2 Cote originally raised the issue of the missing recording in a motion to dismiss, but the trial court correctly recognized that the proper way to challenge the failure to preserve evidence is through a motion to suppress, see State v. Bilynsky, 2007 ME 107, ¶ 40, 932 A.2d 1169, and stated that its order should therefore be construed as a denial of a motion to suppress. See id. (treating the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for destruction of evidence as a ruling on a motion to suppress). At trial, the court similarly indicated that a motion to dismiss was not a proper vehicle for relief based on the destruction of evidence and suggested that discovery sanctions might be more appropriate. When Cote did not suggest any sanction, the court denied both the motion to dismiss and any motion for sanctions. 5 fair trial was violated by the State’s destruction or loss of evidence. Rather, the United States Supreme Court has held that the question of whether a defendant is required to prove that the State acted in bad faith is a function of the nature of the lost or destroyed evidence. See California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488-89 (1984); Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58 (1988). [¶11] In Trombetta, the Court held that, in order to protect a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial, prosecutors have a constitutional duty to preserve material evidence. 467 U.S. at 488. For evidence to be material, it “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.” Id. at 489. That holding, however, left open an important question: whether a defendant’s rights can be violated when the State fails to preserve evidence that was not apparently exculpatory at the time it was lost or destroyed. [¶12] The Court answered that question affirmatively in Youngblood, but it also held that “unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process of law.” 488 U.S. at 58 (emphasis added). The Court emphasized that “[t]he Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted in Brady [v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)], makes the good or bad faith of the State 6 irrelevant when the State fails to disclose to the defendant material exculpatory evidence.” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57. The Court declined, however, to read the Due Process Clause “as imposing on the police an undifferentiated and absolute duty to retain and to preserve all material that might be of conceivable evidentiary significance in a particular prosecution.” Id. at 58. Particularly, the Court held that absent a showing of bad faith, the state’s failure to “preserve evidentiary material of which no more can be said than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant” was not a violation of the defendant’s due process rights. Id. at 57. [¶13] The Supreme Court therefore has drawn a distinction between apparently exculpatory evidence and potentially useful evidence, and that distinction determines whether a defendant must prove that the loss of evidence was the result of bad faith on the part of the state. Youngblood makes clear that a defendant is required to prove that the state acted in bad faith only if the evidence does not “possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed.” Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489; see Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57-58; see also United States v. Garza, 435 F.3d 73, 75 (1st Cir. 2006). [¶14] We have not always drawn that distinction with precision. For example, in State v. Cyr, 588 A.2d 753, 755 n.4 (Me. 1991), although we ruled for the defendant on other grounds, we suggested that the trial court was correct in 7 requiring the defendant to prove that the destroyed evidence was apparently exculpatory and that the State acted in bad faith. Some of our other cases may similarly be seen as blending the separate standards developed in Trombetta and Youngblood into a single three-part test without clearly stating that, if the evidence was apparently exculpatory when it was lost, the defendant is not required to make a showing of bad faith.3 See Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489; see, e.g., State v. Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 29, 96 A.3d 80 (stating that there are three elements the defendant must prove); State v. Kremen, 2000 ME 117, ¶ 15, 754 A.2d 964 (stating that even when the lost evidence is apparently exculpatory, bad faith “must be present”); State v. Lewis, 584 A.2d 622, 625 (Me. 1990) (stating that the defendant must prove that the lost evidence was apparently exculpatory and that the State acted in bad faith).4 3 For example, we stated in State v. Kremen: The State’s failure to preserve evidence does not violate a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial unless (1) the evidence possesses an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed, (2) the defendant would be unable to obtain evidence of comparable value by other reasonably available means, and (3) the State acted in bad faith in failing to preserve potentially useful evidence. All three elements must be present in order for [the defendant’s] right to a fair trial to be found to have been violated. 2000 ME 117, ¶ 15, 754 A.2d 964 (citation omitted) (quotation marks omitted). 4 Although the principles derived from Trombetta and Youngblood were not always precisely articulated in these cases, their outcomes were unaffected because in Cruthirds, Kremen, and Lewis, we determined that the evidence at issue was not apparently exculpatory before concluding that the defendant had not proved bad faith, and in Cyr we affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the charges on other grounds. See State v. Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 32, 96 A.3D 80; Kremen, 2000 ME 117, ¶ 16, 754 A.2d 964; State v. Cyr, 588 A.2d at 756-57; State v. Lewis, 584 A.2d at 625. 8 [¶15] We therefore clarify that, to determine whether the State’s failure to preserve evidence violated a defendant’s right to a fair trial, the trial court is required to conduct a bifurcated analysis. First, the court must determine whether the evidence possessed “an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed.” Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489. If so, then the defendant must show only that the evidence was “of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means.” Id. If, however, the exculpatory value of the evidence was not apparent at the time of its loss or disappearance, the defendant cannot establish a constitutional deprivation without proof that the State also acted in bad faith in failing to preserve the evidence. Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57-58. [¶16] Here, the court did not reach the question of whether the evidence was apparently exculpatory when it was lost, instead finding only that Cote had not proved bad faith on the part of the State and denying his motion on that basis. Pursuant to federal constitutional jurisprudence, the court’s analysis was erroneous because it required Cote to prove bad faith without first considering whether the lost recording was the type of evidence that, pursuant to Youngblood, would have required Cote to prove bad faith in the first place. [¶17] The court did not err, however, in its ultimate determination that the loss of the recording did not violate Cote’s due process rights, because even though 9 the court did not address the issue, the only conclusion allowed by the evidence is that the missing recording was not apparently exculpatory at the time of its disappearance. Cote contends that the exculpatory value in the recorded interview arises from two discrepancies between the victim’s statements in the interview and statements she made later, after Cote was arrested. First, the victim stated in the 1994 interview that the assaults occurred in approximately 1991 or 1992, while the indictment alleges, and the victim testified at trial, that the assaults occurred in 1990. Second, the detective’s report of the interview suggests that the victim may not have stated then that the defendant forced her to have anal intercourse or to engage in oral-genital contact, which was the conduct that she described at trial. [¶18] Any exculpatory value of the 1994 recording is therefore based on its inconsistency with the victim’s statements that were not made earlier than 2012, when the recording was confirmed to be missing. There is no evidence that at the time the recording disappeared the victim had made any statements that conflicted with what she said during the interview. To the contrary, the recorded statement of the victim, accusing Cote of sexual assault, appeared to be entirely inculpatory. See Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 31, 96 A.3d 80 (affirming the trial court’s finding that the victim’s clothing did not have apparent exculpatory value where “there was no thought of an alternative suspect” at the time the evidence was destroyed). 10 We therefore must conclude that when it went missing, the recording did not have any apparent exculpatory value. [¶19] Because the missing recording was, at most, only potentially useful, Cote must prove that the State acted in bad faith in failing to preserve it. The trial court found that “no evidence was presented regarding the reasons for lack of availability of the tape-recorded interview, or what led to the loss or destruction of the tape . . . ,” and it concluded that Cote had not proved that the State acted in bad faith. That finding was not clearly erroneous.5 [¶20] Because the evidence establishes that the missing recording was not apparently exculpatory at the time it was lost and because the court did not err in concluding that the State did not act in bad faith in causing its disappearance, Cote did not prove the elements necessary to establish a violation of his constitutional rights due to the State’s loss of evidence. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying his motion.