Court Opinion

ID: 9719332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:49:04.057381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:06.075991
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
The presumption that public officials discharge their duties with due care was introduced into the evidence law of this state in Kennedy v. State (1991), Ind., 578 N.E.2d 633 (DeBruler, J., dissenting on other *236grounds). The application of that presumption in Kennedy was correct; its application here is incorrect.
The presumption is intended to relieve the state from the burden of showing that the officials who maintained possession and control of an item did not tamper or alter it. It operates where, for example, an item is sent from one public official to another by mail. To establish admissibility in such instances the state need not identify each postal employee through whose possession the item might have travelled before reaching its destination. In like manner, the state need not identify each property room attendant who was on duty while an item was kept there.
In Kennedy, the evidence was gathered from the seene and mailed to an FBI laboratory. Within the confines of the laboratory the evidence passed between an FBI agent and a lab technician in the testing process. This was standard procedure. The claim raised was whether there was proof of a sufficient chain of custody within the laboratory, and that claim was properly resolved on the basis of the presumption of official due care, and the lack of evidence to rebut the presumption by showing tampering or alteration.
Here, by contrast, the question is not handling within the Lowell laboratory by technicians during the testing process. It is instead when and how the items reached the Lowell laboratory from the Indianapolis laboratory. Fortunately, Peterson, the technician at the Lowell laboratory, described the custody procedures at both laboratories and further testified that the evidence was transported from the Indianapolis laboratory to the Lowell laboratory by one Sergeant Trigg due to a backlog of work at the Indianapolis laboratory and that Trigg had been deputized for such purpose. On cross-examination Peterson admitted she had not personally seen Trigg pick up the evidence from the Indianapolis laboratory and deliver it to the Lowell laboratory. Based upon this lack of first hand knowledge, an objection on hearsay grounds was made and overruled. On appeal that ruling is presumptively valid. I am not persuaded that the ruling was error, upon considering the single basis that Peterson had no first hand knowledge.
In my view, the state satisfied its burden of proving a sufficient chain of custody, and for such reason it was not error to admit the test results of Peterson.