Opinion ID: 853577
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Preserve Witness Statement

Text: Noojin contends that the trial court erred in denying his pretrial motion to dismiss that was based on a claim of destruction of evidence. Flores testified at trial that he had given three or four oral statements to police but denied any knowledge of the killings until the final statement. According to Flores, a detective was typing on a computer during each statement and the detective deleted several paragraphs of the earlier statements. After Flores recounted that Noojin had told him that he had killed two people, the detective presented him with a hard copy of a statement. The detective testified that Flores gave an oral statement and only one version was reduced to writing. The detective printed that version and gave Flores an opportunity to review it. Flores made a correction to one word; the detective made the change on the computer and printed a revised copy, which Flores then read and signed. The detective then tore up the previous statement. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss at a pretrial conference that is not included in the record. The motion was renewed at trial and again denied. The basis of the trial court's ruling is not entirely clear, but it appears that the trial court believed the detective's version and not Flores' because the ruling recited that changing one word from the earlier statement was not exculpatory and there was no destruction of material evidence. The United States Supreme Court has explained the scope of the prosecutor's duty to preserve exculpatory evidence as being limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect's defense. To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, 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. California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488-89, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984) (footnote and citation omitted); Holder v. State, 571 N.E.2d 1250, 1255 (Ind.1991). [1] The Court has also held that the failure to preserve potentially useful evidenceas opposed to material exculpatory evidenceviolates the Fourteenth Amendment only when the defendant can show bad faith on the part of police. See Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988). Here, oral accounts were not reduced to writing and a typewritten account was discarded after one word was changed at the request of Flores. This unpreserved evidence does not meet the requirement of possessing an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed. It is not exculpatory at all. It is at most potential evidence impeaching Flores' account of Noojin's confession. Comparable evidenceFlores' trial testimony recounting his various statements to policewas fully available and explored in some depth through cross-examination at trial. The trial court properly denied the motion to dismiss.