Court Opinion

ID: 9737416
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:24:27.279007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:58.703279
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring).
We do not know if the second tape was exculpatory or incriminatory.
Concerning the tape, Lewandowski is urging a due process violation. No showing was made by Lewandowski that the tape, which the State failed to produce, was exculpatory in nature. See, generally, Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).
This Court addressed the concerns of Lewandowski in State v. Boykin, 432 N.W.2d 60 (S.D.1988), concerning a supposed due process violation for negligent loss of potentially exculpatory evidence. We stated:
It is clear that suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment where the evidence has been requested by the accused and is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good or bad faith of the prosecutor. State v. Clabaugh, 346 N.W.2d 448, 450 (S.D.1984) (citing Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963)). “[Wjhen the Government has been responsible for delay resulting in a loss of evidence to the accused, we have recognized a constitutional violation only when loss of the evidence prejudiced the defense.” United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 868,102 S.Ct. 3440, 3447, 73 L.Ed.2d 1193, 1203 (1982). The extent of the government’s duty to take affirmative steps to preserve evidence on behalf of the criminal defendants is, how*346ever, not precisely clear. See California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984).
Whenever potentially exculpatory evidence is permanently lost [through prosecutorial neglect or oversight], courts face the treacherous task of divining the import of materials whose contents are unknown and, very often, disputed.
Trombetta, 467 U.S. at 486, 104 S.Ct. at 2533, 81 L.Ed.2d at 421 (citing Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 102 S.Ct. 3440).
Whatever duty the Constitution imposes on the States to preserve evidence, that duty must be limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect’s defense. To meet this standard of constitutional materiality, see United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. [97], at 109-110, 96 S.Ct. 2392, at 2400, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 [(1976)], 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.
Lewandowski did not satisfy the requirements of Boykin because he had a burden to show that the undisclosed evidence prejudiced the defense and created a doubt concerning his guilt which did not otherwise exist. There was a plethora of evidence to establish his guilt. Testimony of the sheriff and observations of the Bir-chems established his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, the missing tape played no “significant role” in the words of Boykin.