But we do know several important things about the evidence. If the samples on the clothing had been tested, and the results had shown either the blood type of the assailant or that the assailant was a nonsecreter, its constitutional materiality would be clear. Youngblood was convicted at trial, but an appellate court reversed the conviction because the destroyed evidence deprived Youngblood of an opportunity to prove his innocence.

See State v. Serna, 163 Ariz. 260, 264, 787 P.2d 1056, 1060 (1990) (first considering federal due process under Arizona v. Youngblood, and then Willits); State v. Tucker, 157 Ariz. 433, 442, 759 P.2d 579, 588 (1988) (applying bad faith standard before Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Youngblood, Go to On remand to the Arizona Court of Appeals, the court again reversed on state law grounds. It must not be cumulative or collateral, cf.

467 U. S., at 489. Because the Court's opinion improperly limits the scope of due process, and ignores its proper focus in a futile pursuit of a bright-line rule,10 I dissent. Id., at 325; see also United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 790 (1977). I do not, however, join the Court's opinion because it announces a proposition of law that is much broader than necessary to decide this case. In the Court's holding, it stated: “[w]e therefore hold that unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process of law.”[1] The Court relied on United States v. Marion, 404 U.S. 307 (1971), United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783 (1977), and other cases for its reasoning. Search through dozens of casebooks with Quimbee.

He then took the boy to an unidentified, sparsely furnished house where he sodomized the boy four times.

ARIZONA v. YOUNGBLOOD.

153 Ariz., at 54, 734 P. 2d, at 596. Arizona v. Youngblood. Although a closer question, there was no equivalent evidence available to respondent. Does a defendant have to show actual malice, or would recklessness, or the deliberate failure to establish standards for maintaining and preserving evidence, be sufficient? In my opinion, there may well be cases in which the defendant is unable to prove that the State acted in bad faith but in which the loss or destruction of evidence is nonetheless so critical to the defense as to make a criminal trial fundamentally unfair. It states that "unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process of law." Third, the evidence was clearly important. Id., at 111; see also Moore v. Illinois, 408 U.S. 786, 795 (1972) ("We know of no constitutional requirement that the prosecution make a complete and detailed accounting to the defense of all police investigatory work on a case"). Youngblood thus sharply limits the responsibility of the government to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence for testing.

JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE MARSHALL join, dissenting.

There should also be flexibility to deal with evidence that is unusually dangerous or difficult to store. We now reverse. Rather than allow a State's ineptitude to saddle a defendant with an impossible burden, a court should focus on the type of evidence, the possibility it might prove exculpatory, and the existence of other evidence going to the same point of contention in determining whether the failure to preserve the evidence in question violated due process.

In this case, the jury has already performed this calculus based on its understanding of the evidence introduced at trial. In this connection, both a criminologist for the State and an expert witness for respondent testified as to what might have been shown by tests performed on the samples shortly after they were gathered, or by later tests performed on the samples from the boy's clothing had the clothing been properly refrigerated. 1989), vacated, 844 P.2d 1152 (Ariz. 1993), List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 488, List of United States Supreme Court cases, Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume, List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Rehnquist Court, "Innocence Project Larry Youngblood web page accessed November 3, 2008", "Innocence Project Larry Youngblood web page accessed October 4, 2012", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arizona_v._Youngblood&oldid=915270238, United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The Brady Court went on to explain that the principle underlying earlier cases, e. g., Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103 (1935) (violation of due process when prosecutor presented perjured testimony), is "not punishment of society for misdeeds of a prosecutor but avoidance of an unfair trial to the accused."

See App. Second, although it is not possible to know whether the lost evidence would have revealed any relevant information, it is unlikely that the defendant was prejudiced by the State's omission. A semen sample in a rape case where identity is questioned is always significant. These authorities suggest that eyewitness testimony alone, in the absence of corroboration, is to be viewed with some suspicion.

The importance of these types of evidence is indisputable, and requiring police to recognize their importance is not unreasonable. Respondent was convicted of child molestation, sexual assault, and kidnaping in an Arizona state court.
" Id., at 88 (quoting lower court opinion).

There is nothing in Trombetta that intimates that good faith alone should be the measure.5. Syllabus.

Id., at 87. Stacy, Tom, The Search for Truth in Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Columbia Law Review 91 (1991): 1369.

As a consequence, although the discarded evidence in Trombetta had impeachment value (i. e., it might have shown that the test results were incorrect), here what was lost to the respondent was the possibility of complete exoneration.

But it is important to note that the facts of Trombetta differed significantly from those of this case.

The jury found respondent guilty as charged, but the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of conviction. ‘‘DNAFrees Inmate Years After Justices Rejected Plea.’’ The New York Times, August 11, 2000. The court instructed the jury that if they found the State had destroyed or lost evidence, they might "infer that the true fact is against the State's interest." The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed his conviction on the ground that the State had failed to preserve semen samples from the victim's body and clothing. A boy was molested and sodomized. This is not to say that all physical evidence of this type must be preserved. Ibid. Quite the same Wikipedia. In reversing the judgment of the Arizona Court of Appeals, this Court, in my view, misreads the import of its prior cases and unduly restricts the protections of the Due Process Clause. The evidence must also be without equivalent in the particular case.

More significantly, the trial judge instructed the jury: "If you find that the State has .
So, for example, a clear fingerprint can be compared to the defendant's fingerprints to yield a conclusive result; a blood sample, or a sample of body fluid which contains blood markers, can either completely exonerate or strongly implicate a defendant. Arizona v. Youngblood, 27 A. M. J. C. RIM. On October 29, 1983, David L., a 10-year-old boy, attended a church service with his mother.

What we do.

In January 1985, the police criminologist examined the boy's clothing for the first time.

The entire ordeal lasted about 1 1/2 hours. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the limits of Constitutional due process in criminal law. online today. Background. 488 U.S. 51. Exculpatory Evidence, 2nd ed. The result is that he was denied a fair trial by the actions of the State, and consequently was denied due process of law.

The boy identified respondent as the assailant.

Respondent was indicted on charges of child molestation, sexual assault, and kidnaping. Third, the fact that no juror chose to draw the permissive inference that proper preservation of the evidence would have demonstrated that the defendant was not the assailant suggests that the lost evidence was "immaterial." 10 Tr. Although the language of Trombetta includes a quotation in which the words "in good faith" appear, those words, for two reasons, do not have the significance claimed for them by the majority.

Nor would the preservation of the evidence here have been a burden upon the police. Due process must also take into account the burdens that the preservation of evidence places on the police.

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United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112 (1976) (footnotes omitted); see also California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488 (1984) (duty to preserve evidence "must be limited to evidence that might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect's defense"). First, the words are the antecedent part of the fuller phrase "in good faith and in accord with their normal practice." The Court's most recent pronouncement in "what might loosely be called the area of constitutionally guaranteed access to evidence," United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal, 458 U.S. 858, 867 (1982), is in California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479 (1984). First, at the time the police failed to refrigerate the victim's clothing, and thus negligently lost potentially valuable evidence, they had at least as great an interest in preserving the evidence as did the person later accused of the crime. He was released from prison, three years into his sentence, but in 1988, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling, and his conviction was reinstated (Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51).

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Samples of blood and other body fluids, fingerprints, and hair and tissue samples have been used to implicate guilty defendants, and to exonerate innocent suspects. The appeals court found that these samples would probably be larger, less contaminated, and more likely to yield conclusive test results than would the samples collected by use of the assault kit.

Nine days after the attack, on November 7, 1983, the police asked the boy to pick out his assailant from a photographic lineup. Trombetta's initial discussion focused on the due process requirement "that criminal defendants be afforded a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense," 467 U. S., at 485, and then noted that the delivery of exculpatory evidence to the defendant "protect[s] the innocent from erroneous conviction and ensur[es] the integrity of our criminal justice system." FootNotes * In this case, the Arizona Court of Appeals relied on its earlier decision in State v.Escalante, 153 Ariz. 55, 734 P.2d 597 (1986), holding that " `when identity is an issue at trial and the police permit destruction of evidence that could eliminate a defendant as the perpetrator, such loss is material to the defense and is a denial of due process.'

Id., at 489. Id., at 481. As technology develops, the potential for this type of evidence to provide conclusive results on any number of questions will increase. In cases such as this, even without a prophylactic sanction such as dismissal of the indictment, the State has a strong incentive to preserve the evidence.