Opinion ID: 2164307
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Permissive Adverse Inference Charge

Text: We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's refusal to grant defendant's request for a permissive adverse inference charge as a sanction against the People for Lebron's destruction of evidence. The People do have an affirmative obligation to preserve all discoverable evidence within their possession ( People v Martinez, 71 NY2d 937, 940; People v Kelly, 62 NY2d 516, 520). Accordingly, where discoverable evidence gathered by the prosecution or its agent is lost, the People have a heavy burden of establishing that diligent, good-faith efforts were made to prevent the loss ( People v Kelly, 62 NY2d, supra, at 520 [emphasis supplied]). Otherwise, the trial court will exercise its discretion in choosing an appropriate sanction ( id., at 521; see, People v Martinez, 71 NY2d, supra, at 940). Here, when the evidence was destroyed, it had not been gathered by the prosecution or its agent and, thus, the People had no affirmative obligation at that point to preserve it. Typically, sanctions are imposed where a law enforcement officer acting within the scope of his or her official duties loses or destroys evidence already committed to the police's custody ( see, e.g., People v Joseph, 86 NY2d 565; People v Wallace, 76 NY2d 953; People v Haupt, 71 NY2d 929; People v Martinez, 71 NY2d 937, supra; People v Kelly, 62 NY2d 516, supra ). In this case, however, Lebron was not acting as an agent of the People when, acting for personal motives, she destroyed parts of her own tapes before handing them over to the authorities. In addition, Lebron's credibility was attacked in extensive cross-examination regarding her willful destruction of the tapes. Thus, although the People might be held accountable for a key witness' actions in some situations, under these facts we perceive no error in the trial court's refusal to instruct the jury that they were permitted to infer that the destroyed evidence would have been harmful to the People's case. Defendant's remaining contentions are also without merit. Accordingly, the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed. Order affirmed.