State v. Maniccia

355 N.W.2d 256, 1984 Iowa App. LEXIS 1518
CourtCourt of Appeals of Iowa
DecidedJune 26, 1984
Docket68607
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 355 N.W.2d 256 (State v. Maniccia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Maniccia, 355 N.W.2d 256, 1984 Iowa App. LEXIS 1518 (iowactapp 1984).

Opinion

SACKETT, Judge.

Defendant Maniccia appeals from his conviction for delivery of a controlled substance (cocaine) in violation of Iowa Code section 204.401(l)(a)(1981). He asserts on appeal: (1) that he was denied due process by the State’s intentional destruction of evidence; (2) that the trial court erred in admitting certain testimony over hearsay and constitutional objection; (3) that testimony of a police officer concerning statements made by a voice he could not identify was improperly admitted; and (4) that he should have been permitted to introduce a diagram of his house into evidence in surrebuttal.

Defendant was charged by information with delivery of cocaine in violation of Iowa Code section 204.401(l)(a)(1981) and convicted following a jury trial where conflicting evidence was presented concerning a drug transaction.

A police officer testified that he and an informant went to the defendant’s house to purchase cocaine and that he waited while the defendant and the informant went into the kitchen. The informant returned and told him that the defendant was going to the basement to get the cocaine and that they should go there shortly. Maniccia then went down the basement stairs. The officer and the informant subsequently went to the basement, picked up some cocaine, and returned upstairs, at which time the officer gave Maniccia $475.

Maniccia offered a somewhat different version of events, testifying that the informant had previously stored the coeaine in the basement and that in the kitchen he had explained that he wanted to repay a loan by having defendant sell the cocaine to the officer. Maniccia testified that he refused to participate in the transaction and did not go to the basement, that the infor *258 mant went to the basement alone, and that he was later given money by the informant, not the officer. Maniccia’s version of events was corroborated by a witness who testified that he was present in the kitchen, and by another witness who testified that he was present in the basement and that it was the informant and not the defendant who had been there.

The informant had been wired with a microphone and his conversations were monitored from two locations and tape recorded at the more distant of the two. One of the officers who made the tape testified that they erased it when, upon replay, it contained mostly static with only a few intelligible words. Judge Carstensen overruled a pretrial motion to dismiss based on the destruction of the tape, production of which had been sought in a pretrial motion. Judge Briles refused defendant’s request for an instruction permitting the jury to draw an inference adverse to the state from the destruction of the tape.

A police officer at the monitoring location where no tape was made was able to hear the informant’s conversations but could identify only the voices of the informant and the officer in the house. Over hearsay and constitutional objection he was permitted to testify that an unidentified voice made the following statement: “You get the money from him and take him to the basement,” and “You can cut it with no problem.” The officer inside the house testified, inter alia, that Maniccia told him that a person could “add to” the cocaine.

Defendant also objected on hearsay and constitutional grounds to testimony by the officer in the house concerning what the informant had told him about the conversation with defendant in the kitchen, including inculpatory statements allegedly made by defendant. The trial court overruled the objection but later instructed the jury that the evidence was only to be considered for the purpose of explaining the officer’s subsequent action.

During the State’s case in chief, the defense, on cross-examination of the officer who had been in the house, had him draw a diagram of where he had been when he observed defendant start down the basement stairs. Maniccia denied having gone to the basement and introduced other evidence, including photographs and two diagrams, tending to show that the officer could not have observed defendant start down the stairs from the position where he claimed to have been. On rebuttal the State called the officer and two other officers who had subsequently been in the house to contradict the defendant’s evidence. The State was permitted, over objection, to introduce into evidence another diagram of the house, but in surrebuttal the court sustained the State’s objection to admission of a drawn-to-scale diagram of the house.

I.

We first address Maniccia’s argument that he was denied due process by the State’s “intentional destruction” of the tape recording of the alleged cocaine transaction. It is Maniccia’s position that the district court erred in failing to impose a sanction for the State’s destruction of such evidence. Maniccia’s motion to dismiss, based upon the destruction of evidence, was denied. Maniceia’s requested jury instruction, which would have permitted a favorable inference for defendant from the destruction of evidence, was likewise denied.

Because the defendant is asserting a violation of basic constitutional safeguards, our scope of review is de novo and we will make an independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances. State v. Davis, 304 N.W.2d 432, 435 (Iowa 1981).

Where a criminal defendant claims a due process violation premised upon an allegation of the State’s suppression of evidence, our analysis begins with the three-part test set forth in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). See State v. Brown, 337 N.W.2d 507, 509 (Iowa 1983). The Brady test requires: (1) a proper defense request for the evidence; (2) a showing *259 that the evidence would be favorable to the defendant; and (3) a showing that the evidence was material. Brady, 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1193-97, 10 L.Ed.2d at 218. Under the Brady test, good or bad faith on the part of the state is irrelevant. Id. State v. Brown, 337 N.W.2d at 509.

In this case, Maniccia’s specific request for “any and all voice recordings of the transaction” clearly satisfies the first prong of the Brady test. Where, as here, the suppressed evidence has been destroyed, the application of the second prong, favorableness to the defendant, and the third prong, materiality, becomes troublesome. In State v. Brown, 337 N.W.2d at 510, the court held that it would be unfair to require the defense to show fa-vorableness when it is impossible to determine the nature of the evidence, and noted that a contrary holding could encourage “loss” of evidence to avoid a damaging disclosure. In response to that problem, the court in Brown adopted the rule in United States v. Bryant, 439 F.2d 642, 648 (D.C.Cir.1971), which it characterized as a “blend of ‘favorability’ and ‘materiality.’ ” Brown, 337 N.W.2d at 510. The Brown

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Bluebook (online)
355 N.W.2d 256, 1984 Iowa App. LEXIS 1518, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-maniccia-iowactapp-1984.