Court Opinion

ID: 9709315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:44:42.550944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:47.638027
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the failure of authorities to preserve certain evidence denied the defendant due process. Unlike the majority, I believe that the present case is controlled, as a matter of Federal constitutional law, by the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Arizona v. Youngblood (1988), 488 U.S. 51, 102 L. Ed. 2d 281, 109 S. Ct. 333, and California v. Trombetta (1984), 467 U.S. 479, 81 L. Ed. 2d 413, 104 S. Ct. 2528. In accordance with those authorities, I would reverse the judgments of the courts below and allow the present prosecution to go forward. In Trombetta, the Court held that the State was not required to preserve, for possible future testing by the defense, breath samples taken of allegedly intoxicated drivers. In Youngblood, a prosecution for child molestation, sexual assault, and kidnapping, the Court held that authorities had no duty to preserve semen samples in a manner that would have enabled the defense to have them tested. The majority opinion seeks to distinguish Youngblood and Trombetta on several grounds, but none of the reasons cited by the court are persuasive. The majority begins by asserting that the evidence at issue in Youngblood "was not essential for establishing the defendant’s guilt or innocence” (166 Ill. 2d at 315), while declaring that the evidence at issue here was central to the prosecution’s case against the defendant. The majority also maintains that the defendant lacked alternative means of contesting his guilt once the evidence was destroyed and, further, that there is nothing to show that the tests performed by the State prior to the destruction of the evidence were particularly reliable. 166 Ill. 2d at 316. I do not agree that the holding in Youngblood is limited to marginal evidence, or to cases in which a defendant possesses alternative means of countering the evidence of guilt, or to circumstances in which the accuracy of scientific tests performed by the State is unassailable. The Court in Youngblood stated: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted in Brady [v. Maryland (1963), 373 U.S. 83, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215, 83 S. Ct. 1194], makes the good or bad faith of the State irrelevant when the State fails to disclose to the defendant material exculpatory evidence. But we think the Due Process Clause requires a different result when we deal with the failure of the State to preserve evidentiary material of which no more can be said than that it could have been subjected to tests, the results of which might have exonerated the defendant.” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57, 102 L. Ed. 2d at 289, 109 S. Ct. at 337. The defendant does not contend that the evidence he sought was exculpatory. Accordingly, the good faith of the authorities remains relevant, and the defendant should not prevail on his claim unless he can show that the State acted in bad faith. As Youngblood noted, "The presence or absence of bad faith by the police for purposes of the Due Process Clause must necessarily turn on the police’s knowledge of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was lost or destroyed.” Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 56 n.*, 102 L. Ed. 2d at 288 n.*, 109 S. a. at 336 n*. Like the defendant in Youngblood, the defendant in the present case asserts only that the unpreserved evidence might have proved to be exculpatory if it had been subjected to further testing. A laboratory test established the presence of cocaine in the substance allegedly found in the defendant’s possession, though an earlier field test had been negative. There is no suggestion here that the authorities were aware, after the laboratory test conducted, that the evidence had any exculpatory value at the time it was destroyed. Of course, at trial the defendant could challenge the accuracy of the test conducted in the laboratory. The defendant could also refer to the negative result of the initial field test. The defendant does not argue that the negative field test was proof of the exculpatory value of the evidence. Moreover, whatever duty there is to preserve evidence, that duty is limited to evidence likely to be important to the defense. "To meet this standard of constitutional materiality” the evidence must have an exculpatory value apparent prior to its destruction, and the defendant must be unable to obtain comparable proof elsewhere. (California v. Trombetta (1984), 467 U.S. 479, 489, 81 L. Ed. 2d 413, 422, 104 S. Ct. 2528, 2534.) The present defendant has failed entirely to satisfy the initial step of that inquiry. The majority, however, would require a defendant to show bad faith on the part of the State only when the lost or destroyed evidence was not "potentially useful” to the defense and the evidence was not a component of the State’s case in chief. (166 Ill. 2d at 315.) The majority’s contention, however, "runs directly counter to the Court’s rationale for the bad faith rule and its rejection, in destruction cases, of the Brady rule which ’makes the good or bad faith of the State irrelevant.’ (Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57, 102 L. Ed. 2d at 289, 109 S. Ct. at 337.)” (Jones v. McCaughtry (7th Cir. 1992), 965 F.2d 473, 478.) Indeed, accepting the majority’s argument ’’would not only reinstate the Brady rule in some destruction cases, but would do so not because of the exculpatory value of the evidence, but because of its inculpatory value to the government.” {Jones, 965 F.2d at 478.) To avoid that paradoxical result, I believe that the good faith of the authorities is a relevant consideration here even though the evidence is important to the State’s case. The majority also posits that good faith is irrelevant in this case because the evidence was destroyed after defense counsel requested, during discovery, that it be turned over to "the defense. (166 Ill. 2d at 317.) There is no indication in the record, however, that the technician who destroyed the evidence did so to frustrate the defendant’s presentation of a defense, or that the technician was even aware of counsel’s request. According to the representation made by the assistant State’s Attorney, and not disputed by the defendant, the evidence technician destroyed the contraband in June 1991 because he saw that the original indictment, which alleged that the defendant was in possession of a lookalike substance, had been nol-prossed more than three months earlier and therefore believed that the case had been closed. Good faith remains relevant in these circumstances and should be sufficient to defeat the defendant’s due process argument. At most, the record shows that the conduct in failing to preserve the evidence was negligence, which is not a violation of due process. See Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58,102 L. Ed. 2d at 289-90, 109 S. Ct. at 337-38. Finally, the majority suggests that the trial court’s decision to dismiss the charges against the defendant can be sustained as a discovery sanction pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 415(g)(i) (134 Ill. 2d R. 415(g)(i)). Again, the court believes that good faith is irrelevant to this inquiry and that the destruction of the evidence by itself is a sufficient reason for dismissal of the charges. Although defense counsel raised this theory as an alternative ground for dismissal of the indictment, the trial judge did not address the question in his written ruling. In the absence of a finding by the trial court, I am reluctant to determine from the bare record that such an extreme sanction is appropriate here. As noted previously, the evidence did not have any apparent value to the defense, and the technician destroyed it simply because he thought that the charges against the defendant had been dismissed. For the reasons stated, I would reverse the appellate and circuit court judgments and remand the cause to the circuit court so that the charges against the defendant may be reinstated and the State may proceed with its prosecution.