Opinion ID: 1375029
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Failing to Preserve Photographic Evidence

Text: At trial, defendant learned that the Bell Gardens police had recently lost photographs of individuals whom Jose Feliciano identified in 1976 as being the two men taking turns riding the motorcycle. Defendant asserted that one of the missing photographs was taken of someone else who matched the composite sketch exactly. The court ordered the parties to search for the missing photographs and agreed that if they could not be found the jury would have to be told they showed persons other than defendant. Defendant moved to also instruct the jury that one of the photographs precisely matched the composite sketch, but the court tentatively denied the motion on grounds of cumulativeness. It put aside a definitive ruling on the question of the photograph's resemblance to the composite sketch pending the prosecution's effort to try to locate the photographs. The prosecution was unable to do so, and the parties stipulated before the jury that on July 28, 1976, Jose Feliciano was shown six color photographs similar to the composite sketch of the individual seen at Ford Park, and that he identified a photograph of a person other than defendant  apparently the man with the knife he had seen near Fowler and Chavez. The parties also stipulated that Feliciano later viewed photographic lineups and identified individuals other than defendant as possibly being the man on the motorcycle and the man wearing the green Army jacket. (33) Defendant does not attack the tentative ruling or the stipulation, but maintains that failing to preserve the photographs undermined rights he asserts to a fundamentally fair trial and to a reliable guilt and penalty determination. The claim lacks merit. The parties resolved the problem by providing the jury with evidence by stipulation of the photographs' content and significance. Defendant apparently was satisfied with the stipulation, and he may not now complain about it  he has not preserved the point for appeal. ( People v. Fierro, supra, 1 Cal.4th 173, 215; cf. People v. Bacigalupo (1991) 1 Cal.4th 103, 138-139 [2 Cal. Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559], vacated and remanded on other grounds sub nom. Bacigalupo v. California (1992) 506 U.S. 802 [121 L.Ed.2d 5, 113 S.Ct. 32]) [when stipulation made only to control form in which evidence would be introduced following adverse ruling, point preserved for appeal].) Defendant also may be understood to contend that to enter into the stipulation constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. We do not agree. It was professionally reasonable to stipulate in effect that Jose Feliciano identified individuals other than defendant as having been at Ford Park with Fowler and Chavez on the night they were killed.