Opinion ID: 1285642
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Destruction of gun

Text: Appellant contends the murder weapon and any testimony regarding it should have been suppressed, or the indictments against him dismissed, because the gun was destroyed before the defense team could examine it. We disagree. The State presented the following evidence at a pre-trial hearing. Officer Conyers of the Columbia Police Department, who confiscated the gun from Hilliard's residence on October 3, 1996, checked over a four-day period for a report that it was stolen. When her check turned up no owner, she tagged the gun destroy or sell and placed it in the evidence room. All this was done pursuant to normal department procedures. On October 16, the gun was transported to SLED for testing in an unrelated shooting case. The next day, Agent Paavel test-fired the gun and discovered that the markings on the test-fired bullets matched the markings on the bullets from the barbershop and cab driver killings. He took photographs of the gun, including the serial number, and reported his test results to the Columbia Police Department and the Richland County Sheriffs Office. Agent Paavel kept the bullets retrieved from the two murder scenes and the test-fired bullets but eventually returned the gun to the Columbia Police Department. He put the gun in an envelope, marked the envelope do not destroy, and indicated it contained the barbershop murder weapon. Officer Lewis of the Columbia Police Department testified she received the gun back from SLED on March 4, 1997. It still had the original Columbia Police Department tag indicating no owner. There was nothing indicating it was related to the barbershop murders. Following normal procedures, Officer Lewis advertised the gun in the newspaper as unclaimed property. Finally, on May 20, it was destroyed with a group of 140 weapons. The trial judge denied appellant's motions for suppression or dismissal of the indictments ruling there was no bad faith in the destruction of the gun, the bullets were still available to the defense, and there was no prejudice to the defense because the gun was incriminating rather than exculpatory. The evidence regarding the care of the gun by police was introduced at trial and the jury was charged at the close of the case that the evidence was introduced as to the issue of the degree of care exercised by the agents of Columbia Police Department charged with the custody and preservation of evidence. We find no error in the trial judge's ruling. The State does not have an absolute duty to preserve potentially useful evidence that might exonerate a defendant. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988); State v. Mabe, 306 S.C. 355, 412 S.E.2d 386 (1991); State v. Jackson, 302 S.C. 313, 396 S.E.2d 101 (1990). To establish a due process violation, a defendant must demonstrate (1) that the State destroyed the evidence in bad faith, or (2) that the evidence possessed an exculpatory value apparent before the evidence was destroyed and the defendant cannot obtain other evidence of comparable value by other means. State v. Mabe, supra ; State v. Jackson, supra . Appellant has failed to demonstrate any evidence of bad faith. The Columbia police officers testified they followed normal procedures in destroying the gun and there was no indication on the gun connecting it to the barbershop murders at the time of its destruction. While there is evidence of a lack of care, there is no evidence of an intentional destruction of relevant evidence in this case. Further, appellant has not demonstrated in the alternative that the gun had exculpatory value that was apparent before it was destroyed. Appellant's expert testified the actual gun rather than the photographs of it should have been presented to the witnesses for identification. None of the witnesses, however, including appellant at the time he gave his statement, expressed any doubt that the gun in the photographs was the gun given to appellant. Further, Agent Paavel definitively identified the murder weapon as the gun in the photographs. There is no evidence of any apparent exculpatory value especially given the fact that the gun was recovered months after the crime and fingerprints were not an issue. Finally, all of Agent Paavel's reports and the documentation of his microscopic comparison of the bullets from the murder scene with the test bullets fired from the gun, in addition to the bullets themselves, were available to the defense. Accordingly, comparable evidence was available from a source other than the gun. The trial judge properly denied appellant's motions on this ground.