CALIFORNIA EVIDENCE: CIVIL AND CRIMINAL
...Destruction/Failure to Disclose Evid.
......By Prosecution
.........Failure to Preserve
 32 Cards On This Topic:
  • Failure to preserve evidence is due process violation only if evidence might be expected to play significant role in D's defense.
  • Absent bad faith by police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence is not denial of due process.
  • Failure of police to remove hairspray can w/D's fingerprint from car before car was returned to its owner was not a due process violation where no bad faith shown.
  • D did not prove breach of duty to preserve exculpatory evidence where he couldn't show car where Vs found had exculpatory value apparent to police and he could not demonstrate bad faith in its destruction.
  • D's DP rights not violated by O's tape-recording only part of each of D's interviews.
  • As D failed to prove the destruction of W's hypnosis session tape, original composite drawings and blood test results made his trial fundamentally unfair, failure to preserve them was for jury to weigh.
  • D failed to show trash bag containing bloodstained shoes also contained exculpatory evidence, or that Os exercised bad faith in destroying it; no error in not sanctioning DA for not preserving gel plates used in testing.
  • No Trombetta violation in police discarding two shotgun shells from vandalized car where firearms expert tested shells and casings and testified they came from D’s shotgun, and Ds’ experts had chance to examine shells.
  • Police failure to photograph footprints in soil at murder scene and failure to find missing photos of people at scene not Const’l error where no showing of bad faith, one footprint V’s and D given other evidence as to house occupants.
  • Because bloodstain evidence from D's jacket was inculpatory rather than exculpatory, Trombetta test not satisfied and failure of police properly to preserve jacket in frozen state not due process violation.
  • Trial court did not err in finding no bad faith by police in failing to preserve wood chips in V's apartment; no exculpatory value apparent before disappearance; photos of chips and testimony properly admitted under EC 352.
  • D proved points with photocopy and testimony, and remedial ruling barred DA from attempting to rebut by arguing photo was not a good likeness.
  • Because record showed no bad faith on state's part, failure to refrigerate or freeze carpet samples, sexual assault kit evidence, blood and semen samples, and V's bedspread did not result in due process violation.
  • No due process violation in failure to preserve evidence where it was of minimal value to defense, not significantly exculpatory and no bad faith evidence.
  • None of unpreserved crime scene evidence was shown to be favorable to D as unperformed tests and could have either exculpated or incriminated D and not shown police believed evidence was exculpatory.
  • As D made negligence, not bad faith, claim, Os' failing to preserve potentially useful evidence did not deny due process. D failed to show evidence potentially useful for exculpation.
  • No error in concluding lost crime scene evidence not apparently exculpatory nor in concluding disappearance was inadvertent and not product of police bad faith.
  • Failing to tape record D's in-custody statements does not make statements inadmissible; preservation of evidence for D's use not required.
  • Nothing in record suggested missing tape recorder used to record police interview had any exculpatory value to D.
  • State has no constitutional obligation to maintain prior hearing records indefinitely in case they later become relevant for impeachment in another proceeding.
  • Failure to preserve freezer contents from D's ice cream truck, in which V purportedly held, not D.P. violation where no exculpatory value evident and no evidence of police bad faith.
  • Police failure to preserve blood sample fails Trombetta test because not shown to have exculpatory value.
  • Officers properly permitted to testify that cash taken from D during booking was contained in envelope which was discarded during booking.
  • Evidence of item lost by police properly admitted where no exculpatory value apparent before loss and no evidence police acted in bad faith.
  • Even if DA did not comply with statute in preserving marijuana samples, since the defense decided not to examine the samples, D could not show that any error in the sampling process was harmful to his case.
  • O's refusing to check video at robbery scene, together with DA's claim that steps were being taken to preserve it, when it was actually destroyed before review, amounted to bad faith and dismissal affirmed.
  • As prisoner allowed to keep the boxer shorts in which shank was found, there was no exercise of any sovereign power and no due process violation—under any standard of review D's Trombetta claim failed.
  • Cases discussing the failure to preserve evidence.
  • D must move to have lost exhibits reconstructed before he can contend on appeal they were insufficient to sustain verdicts.
  • No due process violations in inadvertent loss of evidence: no exculpatory value apparent before loss and item could not be classified as constitutionally material evidence.
  • Pen. Code §1536 not enacted to punish officers who inadvertently lose evidence seized by search warrant or to give D statutory right to due process claim.
  • Interplay of best evidence rule and prosecution's duty to preserve evidence.


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