Opinion ID: 1247657
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Hitch/Trombetta Motion.

Text: (28a), (29a) Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying the motion to exclude fingerprint evidence and testimony regarding some rings under People v. Hitch (1974) 12 Cal.3d 641 [117 Cal. Rptr. 9, 527 P.2d 361]. In Hitch, we held there is a due process duty to preserve and disclose the component parts of a breathalyzer test and that where such evidence cannot be disclosed because of its intentional but nonmalicious destruction, suppression of the test results is required unless the prosecution can show that the investigative officials have established and enforced rigorous and systematic procedures for the preservation of the evidence. ( Id. at pp. 652-653.) We ruled that the People's duty to preserve applies whenever there exists a reasonable possibility that the evidence would have constituted favorable evidence on the issue of guilt or innocence. ( Id. at p. 649.) We later applied Hitch to require the preservation of a semen sample taken from a rape victim ( People v. Nation (1980) 26 Cal.3d 169 [161 Cal. Rptr. 299, 604 P.2d 1051]) and of a urine sample taken from a suspected narcotics user ( People v. Moore (1983) 34 Cal.3d 215 [193 Cal. Rptr. 404, 666 P.2d 419]). In California v. Trombetta (1984) 467 U.S. 479 [81 L.Ed.2d 413, 104 S.Ct. 2528], the United States Supreme Court addressed for the first time the question of the People's duty under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to take affirmative steps to preserve evidence. (30) Although the high court discussed our Hitch case, it formulated its own test: 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 [citation], 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. (467 U.S. at pp. 488-489 [81 L.Ed.2d at p. 422], fn. omitted.) Although we have acknowledged that the Trombetta formulation of the duty-to-preserve test differs substantially from our Hitch standard ( supra, 12 Cal.3d 641), we have never squarely decided whether Hitch has survived Trombetta. (See In re Michael L. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 81, 86 [216 Cal. Rptr. 140, 702 P.2d 222].) The Court of Appeal, however, was forced to decide this question in People v. Trombetta (1985) 173 Cal. App.3d 1093 [219 Cal. Rptr. 637] where upon remand of the case from the United States Supreme Court, it held that California v. Trombetta supersedes Hitch. The People v. Trombetta court concluded that Hitch was premised on federal due process and that the federal due process test set forth in California v. Trombetta should therefore prevail. (173 Cal. App.3d at p. 1100.) Although we agree with that analysis of our Hitch opinion, we note that there is yet another reason for finding the Trombetta rule controlling. As Justice Eagleson noted in People v. Angeles (1985) 172 Cal. App.3d 1203 [218 Cal. Rptr. 756], the result is also compelled by the Truth-in-Evidence provision of Proposition 8, which added article I, section 28, subdivision (d) to the California Constitution. [10] Justice Eagleson found the Hitch exclusionary rule governed by the reasoning set forth in In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 888-889 [210 Cal. Rptr. 631, 694 P.2d 744], that article I, section 28, subdivision (d) has limited the power of the court to create nonstatutory rules for the exclusion of unlawfully seized evidence if those rules afford greater protection to a criminal defendant than does the Fourth Amendment. In each instance relevant evidence on the issue of guilt or innocence is being excluded, and the reasoning of In re Lance W. should be applicable to both situations. ( Angeles, supra, 172 Cal. App.3d at p. 1217; accord People v. Tierce (1985) 165 Cal. App.3d 256 [211 Cal. Rptr. 325].) Based on the foregoing, we conclude that Hitch, supra, 12 Cal.3d 641, has not survived Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. 479. Under the Trombetta standard we find no error.
The prosecution introduced evidence that defendant had been seen at Dukar's store holding a jewelry catalog and that a catalog found at the store after the murder had two fingerprints matching defendant's. An FBI fingerprint specialist, Thurman Williams, tested the catalog after local authorities had already tested it with ninhydrin and photographed the two fingerprints disclosed. Williams made his own photos of the fingerprints, which were sufficient for comparison purposes. Williams reprocessed the catalog with ninhydrin and then, following normal procedures, used silver nitrate to see if additional prints could be developed. No further prints were found; the silver nitrate turned the paper dark and washed out the latent prints. At the time he used the silver nitrate Williams did not know there were prints to be compared with those found on the catalog. He was later given a set of defendant's prints which he found matched the prints in photos he had taken; there were at least 15 points of similarity and no points of dissimilarity. (28b) In denying the motion to exclude the fingerprint evidence, the trial court stated that the fingerprint identification was made from the photographs of the latent prints and that those photographs still exist. The court also noted that it is standard procedure in analyzing fingerprints to do the silver nitrate test and to do it last. The court's ruling was proper. The catalog did not have an exculpatory value that was obvious at the time of test, nor did it constitute the sole means of obtaining the evidence since the photographs taken of the fingerprints still exist. (See California v. Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 488-489 [81 L.Ed.2d at p. 422].)
On the day of the murder Gary Ingalls had prepared a diagram of two rings the killer had worn. One was a white gold ring with an L-shaped area with two or three diamonds worn on the left little finger. The other was a large diamond encircled by smaller diamonds. The diagrams were given to the police and were lost by them. Defendant was wearing a diamond ring on his left small finger when he was arrested on November 18, 1980. Charles Ray said the ring defendant had been wearing could be the one he had seen on the killer's finger. Gary Ingalls said the ring defendant had been wearing looked similar to one he had seen the killer wearing. Ingalls gave conflicting testimony regarding the description of the non-L-shaped ring he had drawn. At one point he said he could not remember how he had described the second ring. The trial court denied a motion to strike the testimony of other witnesses regarding the ring defendant was wearing when arrested, but it stated it would entertain a motion to strike the testimony of Ingalls as to that matter. (31) The striking of Ingalls's testimony would have been sufficient to dispel any prejudice resulting from the loss of the diagrams. Defendant's failure to seek such relief, in our view, constitutes abandonment of the claim. (See People v. Saddler (1979) 24 Cal.3d 671, 684 [156 Cal. Rptr. 871, 597 P.2d 130].) (29b) In any event, defendant was still able to impeach Ingalls's testimony by having Officer Morasci duplicate in court the diagrams which had been lost. Moreover, the evidence pertaining to the rings was tangential at best since defendant could have changed rings many times in the two and a half weeks between the murder and his arrest. Thus, in Trombetta terms, the diagram could not be expected to have had a significant role in defendant's defense, and defendant was able to obtain comparable evidence by Officer Morasci's duplication of the diagram. ( California v. Trombetta, supra, 479 U.S. at pp. 488-489 [81 L.Ed.2d at p. 422].)