State v. Clark

414 So. 2d 737, 1982 La. LEXIS 11007
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 17, 1982
DocketNos. 81-K(A)-2670, 81-K-3112
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 414 So. 2d 737 (State v. Clark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Clark, 414 So. 2d 737, 1982 La. LEXIS 11007 (La. 1982).

Opinions

DIXON, Chief Justice.

Defendant Tracy Glen Clark was indicted by a DeSoto Parish Grand Jury for aggravated rape (R.S. 14:42). Defense counsel filed a pretrial motion to quash the indictment on the ground that the state failed to preserve certain evidence — vaginal swabs and washings, seminal stains on a bedsheet and other physical evidence — which was used by the state to conduct its tests, rendering it impossible for defendant to run further tests that could rule him out as the perpetrator of the offense. The trial court granted the motion to quash and the state sought review of that ruling in this court.

Meanwhile, the state filed a bill of information charging defendant with aggravated burglary (R.S. 14:60), the facts of which are the same as those in the aggravated rape charge. Again, defense counsel filed a motion to quash This time he alleged that the second charge constituted double jeopardy because the first charge, which arose out of the same incident and thus must be proved by the same evidence, was previously dismissed. The trial court granted the motion to quash and the state applied to this court for writs to review that ruling.

Writs were granted in the aggravated rape case, 81-K(A)-2670, and the aggravated burglary case, 81-K-3112, and the cases were consolidated for our review.

On September 11, 1980 the victim herein reported to the DeSoto Parish sheriff’s department that she was raped by a black man who gained entry to her trailer in rural DeSoto Parish. The victim reported that the rape took place at approximately 2:00 o’clock that morning. Dr. Brouillette, the victim’s personal physician, examined her from 6:00 a. m. to 8:00 a. m. that morning and completed a “rape kit” at the request of the sheriff’s deputies. The rape kit consisted of a questionnaire concerning certain pubic hair combings, vaginal swabs and washings, certain blood and tissue samples and the physical condition of the victim. Dr. Brouillette returned the rape kit to the deputies, but retained the test tube containing vaginal washings and a slide which contained a sample that was used to determine if sperm was present.

The deputies removed from the victim’s bedroom a bedsheet containing a large seminal stain and a pillowcase. These items and the rape kit were delivered to the Northwest Louisiana Criminalistics Laboratory in Shreveport at 7:29 p. m. on Septem[739]*739ber 11,1980. A few days later the deputies delivered to the crime lab items removed from defendant, namely, samples of defendant’s blood, saliva and pubic hair combings.

Subsequent to defendant’s arraignment on March 3, 1981, defense counsel filed discovery motions seeking the results of the tests run at the crime lab. Defense counsel received the results of the tests on April 30, 1981. The report showed that the tests were performed by Pat Wojtikiewicz of the crime lab, who analyzed the vaginal swabs and washings on September 12, 16, 17 and 18. He froze the liquid samples after completing the tests on September 18, 1980. Defendant’s blood was tested on December 2, 1980. Wojtikiewicz testified that the bedsheets and pillowcase, which were stored at room temperature since September of 1980, were tested on February 4, 5, 6 and 9 of 1981 — he stated that his tremendous workload forced him to delay the testing of those items and he did not freeze them because he felt the seminal stains were less susceptible to deterioration. The tests revealed seminal stains on the victim’s bed-sheet consistent with seminal fluid from a “secretor”1 of blood Group O substance, the same as defendant. (The victim is a se-cretor of blood Group A substance).

Upon receiving the crime lab’s report, defense counsel engaged two experts, Dr. George McCormick, a forensic pathologist and Bossier Parish coroner, and Dr. I. C. Stone, chief of the Physical Evidence Section of the Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas, Texas. Both doctors criticized Woj-tikiewicz’s decision not to freeze the bed-sheet because the seminal stain had lost some of its enzyme properties.2 According to Dr. McCormick and Dr. Stone, enzyme properties deteriorate more rapidly than other properties in semen samples. Additionally, the test tube containing the vaginal washings was broken and the slide which contained the sample could not be found. Therefore, it became impossible to conduct further tests on the evidence which could have possioly exonerated defendant.

On August 2, 1981 the trial court found that the state was negligent in failing to properly preserve the evidence for further testing. The court further found that this was material evidence because even though the victim made a positive identification of defendant, on at least one prior occasion the victim and defendant were in close proximity to each other and the victim did not identify defendant. The court reasoned that due to a mishandling of the evidence defendant had been deprived of important scientific evidence bearing on the identity of the perpetrator and that justice would not be served if the defendant were to go to trial with such a severe handicap in terms of proof. The court therefore sustained defendant’s motion to quash.

The state contends that it did not act negligently in failing to preserve seminal stains for future testing by defense experts, and that even the negligent destruction of evidence, which could exonerate defendant, does not provide grounds for the trial court to dismiss an indictment. Defense counsel contends that the trial court’s ruling should be upheld because the destruction of the evidence which could exonerate the defendant deprived him of his right to a fair trial.

[740]*740Destruction of evidence is not among the grounds for a motion to quash an indictment under C.Cr.P. 532 and 533.3 Defense counsel has not cited any case in which this court has upheld an order by a trial court sustaining a motion to quash based on the ground that the state failed to preserve certain evidence which might have exonerated defendant had defense’s expert been able to make an independent examination of the evidence. Neither do the cases from other jurisdictions which defense counsel cited in brief authorize the pretrial dismissal of charges against a defendant when such evidence is unavailable for further testing by defense’s expert. Rather, those cases were concerned with post conviction remedies available to the defendant when it was discovered that the state intentionally or negligently suppressed exculpatory evidence. Nevertheless, in each of those cases the remedy provided by the reviewing court was to order the trial court to grant the defendant a new trial or, presumably, dismiss the charges against him if the state decided not to retry him. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963); Flanagan v. Henderson, 496 F.2d 1274 (5th Cir. 1974); Davis v. Pitchess, 388 F.Supp. 105 (C.D.Cal.1974), aff'd. 518 F.2d 141 (9th Cir. 1974), rev’d. 421 U.S. 482. 95 S.Ct. 1748, 44 L.Ed.2d 317 (1975); Bowen v. Eyman, 324 F.Supp. 339 (D.C.Ariz.1970); State v. Gammill, 2 Kan. App.2d 627, 585 P.2d 1074 (1978).

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414 So. 2d 737, 1982 La. LEXIS 11007, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-clark-la-1982.