Opinion ID: 3012911
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Spoliation of the Evidence

Text: Jackman challenges the prosecution’s “destruction” of the device in question. In California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 489 (1984), the Supreme Court held that the government’s duty under the due process clause to preserve evidence is limited to evidence that possesses both “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.” Four years later, in Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58 (1988), the Supreme Court held that “unless 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.” Thus, under Youngblood and Trombetta, a defendant must show that the government “(1) acted in bad faith when it destroyed the evidence, which (2) possessed an apparent exculpatory value and, which (3) is to some extent irreplaceable.” United States v. Femia, 9 F.3d 990, 99394 (1st Cir. 1993). Accordingly, the “presence or absence of good or bad faith by the government will be dispositive.” Id. at 994. Bad faith, as Youngblood instructed, “turn[s] on the police’s 7 knowledge of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was lost or destroyed.” 488 U.S. at 56 n.1; see Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 488 (observing that the record did not contain any allegations of official animus toward the defendant or a conscious effort by the police to suppress the exculpatory evidence). Here, Jackman contends that the government’s destruction of the cardboard tube by drilling into it and the failure to weigh the contents of the Pyrodex deprived him of the opportunity to test the evidence to determine that it was, in fact, a destructive device in violation of the law. The government’s bad faith, according to Jackman, was evident from the fact that it “destroyed the potentially exculpatory evidence at a time when it did not even know whether the IED violated federal law.” The legal conclusions underlying the District Court’s denial of Jackman’s motion to dismiss count two of the indictment based on the destruction of evidence are subject to plenary review. We review the factual findings for clear error. United States v. Driscoll, 852 F.2d 84, 85 (3d Cir. 1988); see also United States v. Wright, 260 F.3d 568, 570 (6th Cir. 2001) (review of motion to dismiss for failure to preserve exculpatory evidence subject to de novo review). Jackman’s argument is not persuasive. Under Youngblood, Jackman had to demonstrate bad faith, i.e., knowledge by the police “of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was . . . destroyed.” 488 U.S. at 56 n.1. No such showing has been made. Instead, Jackman simply relies on the sequence of events surrounding the 8 IED’s seizure and incapacitation to establish bad faith. This sequence of events, without more, fails to demonstrate bad faith, an official animus towards Jackman or even a conscious effort to frustrate Jackman’s defense. Accordingly, the District Court appropriately denied Jackman’s motion to dismiss count two of the indictment. Because the prosecution met its burden of proof by introducing evidence regarding the design of the destructive device and because it was not required to prove intent, see supra, § III (citing Urban, 1440 F.3d at 234), Jackman cannot demonstrate that the evidence possessed an apparent exculpatory value. Moreover, Jackman fails to recognize that while the IED’s intact cardboard tube and the weight of the Pyrodex were no longer available, there was ample evidence at his disposal for analysis. Such evidence included not only similar commercially available PCDs constructed of cardboard tubes, but also the remains of the IED after it was disassembled, the photographs of the IED and its components taken during various stages of its disassembly, and the commercially available PCDs, Pyrodex, epoxy and roller bearings. Because the PCD was commercially available, similar PCDs could have been analyzed to determine the strength of the cardboard tube, the dimensions of the empty chamber in the PCD, the volume of the empty chamber in the PCD, and the quantity of powder required to fill the empty chamber. As a result, Jackman cannot satisfy the third prong of the Trombetta Youngblood test, that is, that he was unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 489. 9