State of Maine v. Winchester

• Court: Superior Court of Maine
• Decided: October 27, 2016
• Docket: AROcr-15-0067
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

STATE OF MAINE SUPERIOR COURT A ROOSTOOK,ss DOCKET NO . CR-15 -0067

STATE OF MAINE ) ) ) ) vs. ) ORDER ON MOTION TO SUPPRESS ) ) ) DENNIS WINCHESTER ) Defendant · )

Pending before the court is the Defendant's Motion to Suppress. The Defendant contends

that his rights to due process have been violated by what he alleges to be the State's failure to

preserve exculpatory evidence. The court has conducted an evidentiary hearing in this matter and

has now had the opportunity to consider the evidence and the arguments of counsel. For the

reasons set forth herein, the court denies this motion.

In this case, Maine State Police Trooper Chuck Michaud was investigating a burglary and

theft of property belonging to Larry Walton. In conjunction with the seai·ch of property

apparently belonging to Holly Anderson in Van Buren 1, the trooper seized a socket set. Mr.

Walton produced a receipt documenting his purchase of the socket set. He also identified the

socket set as his because, among other things, the case had his initials on it and it had a broken

latch. Additionally, the set was missing a particular socket. Thereafter, Trooper Michaud

1 1t isn't clear to the court whether Ms Anderson is the owner of the property or whether she is a tenant. It also is not clear if the Defendant has any ownership or other possessory interest in the property; notwithstanding this issue, there has been no challenge to his standing to bring this motion . returned the socket set to Mr. Walton. The State has now charged the Defendant with Theft

(Class C) and with Burglary (Class D).

The Defendant contends that his right to a fair trial compmting with due process

requirements has been compromised by virtue of the fact that law enforcement officers returned

the subject item to its purported owner rather than retained it within their control. The essence of )

the Defendant's argument is that the State's failure to preserve this evidence violated his right to

due process .

In California v Trombetta, 467 U.S . 479, 488-89, the United States Supreme Court held

that the question of whether a defendant !ms been denied his right to a fair trial as the result of

the State's loss or destruction of evidence is not limited to whether the State has acted in bad

faith or not. "Rather, ...the question of whether a defendant is required to prove that the State

acted in bad faith is a function of the nature of the lost or destroyed evidence." The Court made it

clear that prosecutors have a duty to preserve material evidence and for evidence to be regarded

as material, that evidence must possess an exculpatory vnlue 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. Further, the Court stated that, in the

absence of demonstrated bad faith, the prosecutors failure to preserve only potentially useful

evidence is not a denial of due process.

Om Law Court has addressed this issue in State v. Cote, 2015 ME 78, ~ 15, 118 A .3d

805, 810 when it wrote,

! to] determine whether tbe State's fa ilure to preserve evidence violated a defendant's right to a fair trial, tb.e trial court is required to conduct a bifurcated analysis. First, the court must determine whether the evidence possessed an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed. If so, then tbe clefendanl must show only that the evidence was of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably avnilable means. If, however, the exculpatory value of the evidence was not apparent at the time of its loss or disappearance, the defendant cannot establish a constitutional deprivation without proof that the State also acted in bad faith in failing to preserve the evidence.

In this case, the Defendant has failed to demonstt:ate that the evidence claimed to be "lost

or destroyed" possessed any exculpatory value that was apparent at the time of its "loss." Further,

the Defendant has failed to demonstrate any bad faith of the part of the law enforcement officers

involved in handling that evidence.

Moreover, irrespective of the questions of whether the evidence possessed "exculpatory

value" and whether the prosecution acted in "bad faith", the Defendant faces a more basic

problem . Before the court can turn its attention to whether evidence was "exculpatory" or

whether there has been "bad faith", the Defendant must get over a threshold requirement that in

deed, the subject evidence has been "lost or destroyed." All that the Defendant has demonstrated

is that law enforcement officers returned property to its purported owner. The Defendant has not

demonstrated that the evidence will not be available for his trial. The court is aware of no

prohibition for law enforcement officers to return property to owners pending trial. If the State

can produce the evidence at trial, by definition it is not "lost or destroyed." In State v. Smith, 400

A.2d 749, 757, the Law Court stated that the State had no obligation to provide for inspection of

objects outside of its possession, custody or control. Once such objects were returned to their

owner, those objects were as accessible to the Defendant as they were to the State. Should it

occur that the owner has not retained custody of the objects or is otherwise lmHble to produce

them at trial, then it may well be the State that is prejudiced by its actions rather than the

Defendant.

The entry shall be: The Defendant's Motion to Suppress is denied. October 27, 2016 E. Allen Hunter Active Retired Justice of the Superior Court