Opinion ID: 173551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Youngblood Challenge

Text: Mr. Hood does not deny that he had methamphetamine in his backpack on September 14, 2006. Rather, he argues that the district court should have dismissed the indictment against him because the government destroyed potentially exculpatory evidence. More specifically, Mr. Hood challenges law enforcement's destruction of the plastic bags found in his backpack, law enforcement's combination of the individually bagged methamphetamine into one aggregate amount of drugs, and its decision to send the methamphetamine to the K-9 training unit. According to Mr. Hood, without that evidence, he was unable to pursue effectively his defense that he did not possess fifty or more grams of methamphetamine, but possessed a lesser amount. [4] As he argued at trial, Mr. Hood theorizes on appeal that if some of the bags alleged to have been found in his backpack had already been at Stacy Wilbert's house, and if the bags properly attributed to him contained less than 50 grams of actual methamphetamine, he could not have been convicted of violating 21 U.S.C. § 841([b])(1)(A)(viii). Aplt. Reply Br. at 2. Mr. Hood contends that, had the evidence at issue not been destroyed, he would have been able to test the contents of each bag recovered from his backpack before it was commingl[ed] and that he needed fingerprint analysis of the bags. Aplt. Opening Br. at 19. He sets forth several hypothetical mathematical equations to demonstrate that it is at least possible that all of the following propositions could be true: the drugs he brought in his backpack, when combined with the drugs found in Ms. Wilbert's home, could have totaled 526 grams; the combination of the purity levels of all the drugs could be 476.5 grams of actual methamphetamine; and the amount of actual methamphetamine Mr. Hood carried in his backpack could have been less than fifty grams. He states that [t]hese hypotheticals are plausible but unprovable, given the negligent gathering and handling and ultimate destruction of the evidence in this case. Aplt. Reply Br. at 5. Mr. Hood therefore contends that the government's destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence violated his due process rights under Trombetta and Youngblood. However, we disagree. We begin, as always, by explicating the applicable standard of review. As we stated in United States v. Smith, We review a district court's determination that the government did not destroy potentially exculpatory evidence for clear error. The inquiry into allegations of prosecutorial bad faith presents a mixed question of fact and law in which the quintessential factual question of intent predominates. The burden is on [the defendant] to show bad faith. 534 F.3d 1211, 1223-24 (10th Cir.2008) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court did not clearly err in concluding that Mr. Hood cannot establish a due process deprivation under the standards set forth in Trombetta and Youngblood. Addressing the former, we noted, For [the] destruction of evidence to rise to the level of affecting a defendant's Due Process rights under California v. Trombetta , the 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. United States v. Pearl, 324 F.3d 1210, 1215 (10th Cir.2003) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord United States v. Bohl, 25 F.3d 904, 909-10 (10th Cir.1994). In Youngblood, the Supreme Court extended Trombetta to provide that, if the exculpatory value of the evidence is indeterminate and all that can be confirmed is that the evidence was potentially useful for the defense, then a defendant must show that the government acted in bad faith in destroying the evidence. Bohl, 25 F.3d at 910 (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Smith, 534 F.3d at 1224; United States v. Beckstead, 500 F.3d 1154, 1158 (10th Cir. 2007). Mr. Hood cannot satisfy either test. Initially, Mr. Hood has conceded that the destroyed evidence was only potentially exculpatory, thereby eliminating any claim he may have had under Trombetta. Moreover, Mr. Hood cannot succeed under Youngblood because, even if we assume that the evidence was potentially exculpatory, Mr. Hood conceded in his Reply Brief and at oral argument that the officers did not act in bad faith in destroying the evidence. [5] Consequently, his Youngblood challenge must necessarily fail. [U]nless 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. Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58, 109 S.Ct. 333; accord Snow v. Sirmons, 474 F.3d 693, 716 (10th Cir.2007). Mr. Hood attempts to salvage his claim by contending that we should hold that bad faith is not required in this case pursuant to Justice Stevens's concurrence in Youngblood. Justice Stevens provided a sixth vote in Youngblood, but he only concurred in the judgment. Specifically, he declined to join in the Youngblood majority's opinion, reasoning that it announces a proposition of law that is much broader than necessary to decide this case. 488 U.S. at 60, 109 S.Ct. 333 (Stevens, J., concurring). In particular, Justice Stevens objected to the majority's determination that law enforcement's failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not amount to a due process violation, unless the defendant can show that law enforcement acted in bad faith. See id. at 60-61, 109 S.Ct. 333. He wrote, [i]n my opinion, there may well be cases in which the defendant is unable to prove that the State acted in bad faith but in which the loss or destruction of evidence is nonetheless so critical to the defense as to make a criminal trial fundamentally unfair. Id. at 61, 109 S.Ct. 333. Mr. Hood's reliance on Justice Stevens's concurrence is unavailing for two reasons. First, at the risk of stating the obvious, Justice Stevens was not speaking for a majority of the Court in Youngblood. Indeed, no other justice joined his concurrence. We have never applied Justice Stevens's view as controlling precedent. And we see no tenable basis for doing so here. Second, even if we could accept the proposition that law enforcement bad faith is not required in cases where the loss or destruction of evidence is so critical to the defense as to render the trial fundamentally unfair, we would have little difficulty concluding on the facts before us that this is not such a case. Mr. Hood's defense turned in large part on the theory that the police had corruptly conspired to add the methamphetamine found in Ms. Wilbert's home to that found in Mr. Hood's backpack in order to subject him to the enhanced criminal penalty associated with possession of fifty or more grams of methamphetamine. To be critical to that defense, the lost or destroyed evidence would have to be, at the very least, favorable to Mr. Hood (e.g., reveal Ms. Wilbert's fingerprints on the destroyed plastic bags). But, as Mr. Hood concedes, it was not apparent whether the evidence would favor the government or the defendant. Aplt. Reply Br. at 7. Furthermore, Mr. Hood had ample opportunity to advance his defense theory before the jury in other ways. As the government details in its brief, defense counsel extensively cross-examined witnesses regarding whether the drugs obtained from Mr. Hood and Ms. Wilbert were kept separate or (illicitly) combined. Mr. Hood's counsel challenged the handling of evidence and the chain of custody, and also vigorously argued the conspiracy theory before the jury. Thus, the jury was fully apprised of the nature of Mr. Hood's defense, thereby reducing, or perhaps even eliminating, any prejudice that might otherwise flow from the absence of the destroyed evidence. Cf. Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 59, 109 S.Ct. 333 (Stevens, J., concurring) ([A]lthough it is not possible to know whether the lost evidence would have revealed any relevant information, it is unlikely that the defendant was prejudiced by the State's omission. In examining witnesses and in her summation, defense counsel impressed upon the jury the fact that the State failed to preserve the evidence and that the State could have conducted tests that might well have exonerated the defendant. (emphasis added)). Moreover, on the question of fundamental fairness, as Justice Stevens's Youngblood analysis suggests, our overriding concern [is] with the justice of the finding of guilt and a State's failure to turn over (or preserve) potentially exculpatory evidence therefore must be evaluated in the context of the entire record. Id. at 60, 109 S.Ct. 333 (Stevens, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted). The record here indicates that the jury would have had little, if any, basis to adopt Mr. Hood's theory. As the government has argued, There was strong evidence that Stacy Wilbert's drugs and Hood's drugs were handled entirely separately, never commingled, and that no conspiracy was hatched to add drugs to those carried by Hood. Aplee. Br. at 30. Furthermore, there was evidence in the record that Mr. Hood regularly distributed methamphetamine to Ms. Wilbert in quantities in excess of fifty grams and that, when Mr. Hood was arrested, he was bringing Ms. Wilbert the regular amount, R., Vol. III, Pt. 1, at 147, of approximately 113 grams. Consequently, even if we could be guided by Justice Stevens's concurrence, on the facts of this case, we would conclude that the loss or destruction of evidence was not so critical to the defense as to make a criminal trial fundamentally unfair. Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 61, 109 S.Ct. 333 (Stevens, J., concurring). In sum, we hold that the district court did not clearly err in rejecting Mr. Hood's claim that his due process rights had been violated under Trombetta and Youngblood.