Opinion ID: 4542356
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unpreserved Evidence

Text: [¶13] When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we review the trial court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 9, 118 A.3d 805. We “will uphold the court’s denial of a motion to suppress if any reasonable view of the evidence supports the trial court’s decision.” State v. Diana, 2014 ME 45, ¶ 11, 89 A.3d 132 (quotation marks omitted). [¶14] In Cote, we discussed and clarified the legal framework that applies when a defendant contends that his constitutional right to a fair trial was violated by the State’s failure to preserve certain evidence. 2015 ME 78, ¶¶ 9-15, 118 A.3d 805. We explained that the inquiry requires the trial court The Sentence Review Panel denied Chan’s application for leave to appeal from his sentence. See 7 M.R. App. P. 20; State v. Chan, No. SRP-19-222 (Me. Sent. Rev. Panel Sept. 10, 2019). 8 “to conduct a bifurcated analysis.” Id. ¶ 15. “First, the court must determine whether the evidence possessed ‘an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed.’” Id. (quoting California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 489 (1984)). “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. (quoting Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489). “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.” Id. (citing Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 57-58 (1988)); see Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58 (“[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.” (emphasis added)). [¶15] We note at the outset that the cases applying this analysis have examined the government’s failure to preserve evidence that, for at least some period of time, had come within its possession or control. See Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 52-54, 57; Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 481-83, 487-88, 488 n.7; see also, e.g., Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 4, 118 A.3d 805; State v. Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 27, 9 96 A.3d 80; State v. St. Louis, 2008 ME 101, ¶ 3, 951 A.2d 80. When presented with allegations that the government failed to disclose information, we have made clear that the due process clause does not require the State “to search for information the State does not know exists and that is not within its control.” State v. Hassan, 2018 ME 22, ¶ 19, 179 A.3d 898 (emphasis added). Absent at least some reason to know that the evidence exists, it would be impossible for the State to preserve the evidence in the first place or to disclose it later. See id. ¶ 22 (“An allegation that prosecutors have failed to turn over information that they do not actually or constructively possess or control . . . can never serve as the basis for a Brady violation.”);8 see also Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 280-81 (1999). [¶16] We do not depart from those rules here. In this case, however, the trial court, by applying the standards we expressed in Cote, implicitly found that the unpreserved portions of the store’s surveillance video recordings for the day in question were within the knowledge and at least the constructive control of the investigating officer, and therefore of the State, before they were destroyed. In the particular circumstances of this case, that finding was 8 In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), the United States Supreme Court established that a due process violation occurs when the government fails to disclose evidence that is “favorable to an accused” and “material either to guilt or to punishment.” 10 supported by the suppression record. The evidence suggested that the officer was informed that the store had a recording that covered the entire time period during which the victims claimed they had been away from their residence on the day of the alleged burglary, and that the officer could easily have obtained that entire recording. In addition, all of the store employees’ investigatory conduct was performed at the direction of, and in consultation with, the police. [¶17] Contrary to the State’s contention, this case is unlike Hassan; there, the State had no reason to suspect that the evidence in question existed until a potential witness told the prosecutor new information shortly before trial.9 2018 ME 22, ¶¶ 3-4, 19, 179 A.3d 898. It is like Trombetta, where the government had “[t]he capacity to preserve” the breath samples at issue, 467 U.S. at 488 n.7. Although the police have no constitutional duty to pursue any particular course of investigation, see State v. Robbins, 1997 ME 21, ¶ 7, 689 A.2d 603, once the officer here became aware of the nature of the available recording, it became material over which the State could have obtained 9 We are similarly unpersuaded by the State’s attempts to analogize this case to State v. Robinson, 2015 ME 77, 118 A.3d 242, and State v. Robbins, 1997 ME 21, 689 A.2d 603, neither of which involved a due process challenge based on unpreserved evidence. In Robinson, we held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it allowed testimony about a video recording where the State did not know that the recording existed until after it had been destroyed. 2015 ME 77, ¶¶ 9-13, 22-36, 118 A.3d 242. In Robbins, a case that did not involve the loss or destruction of evidence at all, we held that the trial court did not err in permitting the rebuttal testimony of certain witnesses where the State was unaware of the existence of the witnesses until the end of the first day of trial. 1997 ME 21, ¶¶ 4-7, 689 A.2d 603. 11 possession or control, cf. State v. Foy, 662 A.2d 238, 242 (Me. 1995) (explaining that evidence that the State “had no reason to assume” existed “was not material that was, or should have been, in the [State’s] possession or control”). [¶18] We therefore evaluate Chan’s argument pursuant to the bifurcated analysis set forth in Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489, and Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58, as described in Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶¶ 10-15, 118 A.3d 805.10 As discussed above, supra ¶ 14, the first step in the analysis is for the court to “determine whether the evidence possessed ‘an exculpatory value that was apparent 10 We have unambiguously adopted the Trombetta and Youngblood standards when interpreting the Maine Constitution in this area of the law. See State v. Anderson, 1999 ME 18, ¶¶ 1, 7-12, 724 A.2d 1231 (applying the Trombetta and Youngblood standards to address a due process challenge pursuant to the Maine Constitution and reiterating that “[t]his Court has held repeatedly that due process under the Maine Constitution provides no greater protection to individuals than does due process under the United States Constitution”); see also State v. Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶¶ 10-15, 118 A.3d 805; State v. Bilynsky, 2007 ME 107, ¶ 41, 932 A.2d 1169; State v. Berkley, 567 A.2d 915, 917-18 (Me. 1989). Chan points out in a footnote in his brief that courts in other jurisdictions have interpreted their state constitutions to grant due process protection in this context beyond that defined in Trombetta and Youngblood, and invites us to do likewise, without explaining what in the Maine Constitution would be the basis for doing so. See, e.g., State v. Morales, 657 A.2d 585, 590-95 (Conn. 1995) (collecting cases); State v. Delisle, 648 A.2d 632, 642-43 (Vt. 1994); State v. Smagula, 578 A.2d 1215, 1217 (N.H. 1990); Commonwealth v. Olszewski, 519 N.E.2d 587, 590 (Mass. 1988). We decline the invitation. See, e.g., State v. Lowe, 2015 ME 124, ¶ 23 n.6, 124 A.3d 156; State v. Genotti, 601 A.2d 1013, 1021 (Conn. 1992) (declining to reach this precise issue absent “a separate state constitutional analysis alleging a violation of . . . state due process rights”); cf. Morales, 657 A.2d at 589 & n.10 (reaching the state constitutional law issue because the appellant had “furnish[ed] a detailed analysis” related specifically to the state constitution). As the Connecticut Supreme Court has stated, “reliance on other state constitutional precedent does not suffice as a proxy for independent analysis of our own constitutional language, history, tradition and policy.” State v. Perez, 591 A.2d 119, 124 (Conn. 1991). We do not foreclose the reassessment that Chan suggests, and that the concurrence also endorses, if the opportunity arises in a future case in which the issue is fully developed. 12 before the evidence was destroyed.’” Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 15, 118 A.3d 805 (quoting Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489). [¶19] The trial court found that the evidence was not apparently exculpatory when it was destroyed, and that finding was affirmatively supported by the suppression record. Chan does not argue otherwise—he refers to the unpreserved recordings only as “potentially exculpatory.” In fact, the record affords no reason to doubt that the employee who actually reviewed the surveillance video noted all activity depicted, nor any reason to doubt that the manager provided everything of any import on the video during the appropriate interval.11 No evidence admitted during the hearing indicated or even implied that the unpreserved portions of the recording had any exculpatory value at all, let alone that that fact was or should have been apparent to the police or the State. See id. ¶¶ 17-18; Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶¶ 30-32, 96 A.3d 80. [¶20] Given the lack of apparently exculpatory evidence in the unpreserved portion of the surveillance video recording, Chan bore the burden We are not persuaded by Chan’s argument that “nobody ever watched some of” the recording. 11 Based on the testimony that the store employee watched the recording of “the entire day” and “until it got dark,” the court could have rationally found that the employee stopped watching when the recording became dark enough that she could not see the residence across the road. See State v. Sasso, 2016 ME 95, ¶ 19, 143 A.3d 124 (noting that absent a motion for further findings, “we infer that the court found all the facts necessary to support its judgment if those inferred findings are supportable by evidence in the record” (quotation marks omitted)). 13 of demonstrating that “the State . . . acted in bad faith in failing to preserve the evidence.” Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 15, 118 A.3d 805; see Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58. The trial court found that he did not meet that burden, and we review that finding for clear error, Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 19, 118 A.3d 805. The question of bad faith is a fact-specific inquiry focusing on the reasons behind the action or inaction leading to the claimed due process violation. See, e.g., Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶ 32, 96 A.3d 80 (affirming a finding of no bad faith where police destroyed a sexual assault victim’s clothing, given that the defendant had been positively identified by an eyewitness and “nothing beyond bare speculation pointed to an alternative suspect” when the clothing was destroyed). “[B]ad faith requires more than negligence.” Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 19 n.5, 118 A.3d 805; see St. Louis, 2008 ME 101, ¶ 7, 951 A.2d 80 (affirming a finding of no bad faith “despite the State’s serious oversight” in allowing an insurance company to destroy a vehicle involved in an accident). [¶21] Once the police became aware that the surveillance video depicted activity at the residence during the time in question, they could have obtained the recording for the entire day, rather than only the parts of the video that the store employee had picked out and the manager had provided. However, the failure to do so was negligent at worst. As the trial court found, no evidence 14 suggested that the State failed to preserve the remaining portions of the recording in order to conceal exculpatory evidence or to avoid discovery obligations. See Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 19, 118 A.3d 805; Cruthirds, 2014 ME 86, ¶¶ 32-33, 96 A.3d 80; see also Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58. That the officer did not personally watch the entire video, even accepting Chan’s argument that he should have, does not indicate reckless or intentional conduct.12 See Cote, 2015 ME 78, ¶ 19 & n.5, 118 A.3d 805. The trial court’s finding that the State did not act in bad faith when it failed to preserve the remainder of the recording did not constitute clear error. [¶22] We therefore decline to disturb the court’s findings and conclude that the court did not err when it denied Chan’s motion to suppress. See Diana, 2014 ME 45, ¶ 11, 89 A.3d 132.