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People v. Frye7/30/1998
forensic science at the University of California.
Dr. Thorton testified that, in his opinion, the crime scene processing was defective. He faulted the Department of Justice criminologists' performance in several respects, including their failure to collect what was, in his view, relevant physical evidence. He particularly criticized them for having overlooked shotgun casings, for declining to collect a slipper with bloodstains on the sole, and for failing to process a number of different bloodstains, dog hair, and paw prints found at the scene.
Having heard and considered the testimony presented at the hearing and the argument of counsel, the trial court denied the Hitch motion. Citing to California v. Trombetta (1984 ) 467 U.S. 479 (Trombetta), the trial court found that the defense had failed to show that the complained-of evidence was material or that it would have constituted favorable evidence on the question of guilt or innocence.
Defendant claims the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the special circumstance allegations. He asserts more specifically that the failure by Department of Justice investigators to collect certain pieces of physical evidence violated the federal due process standards enunciated in Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. 479 and Arizona v. Youngblood (1988) 488 U.S. 51 (Youngblood).
At the time of defendant's trial, the state law governing claims based on an asserted failure by authorities to preserve evidence was found in Hitch, supra, 12 Cal.3d 641. Hitch established that the prosecution's due process duty to disclose material evidence creates a corresponding obligation to preserve such evidence. (Id. at pp. 650, 652-653.) The rule in Hitch has been superseded in California by the principles enunciated in Trombetta and Youngblood. (People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 771, 810-811 (Cooper); People v. Johnson (1989) 47 Cal.3d 1194, 1233-1234). Under these federal decisions, a defendant claiming a due process violation based on the failure to preserve evidence must show the exculpatory value of the evidence at issue was apparent before it was destroyed, and that the defendant could not obtain comparable evidence by other reasonable means. (Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 489.) The defendant must also show bad faith on the part of the police in failing to preserve potentially useful evidence. (Youngblood, supra, 488 U.S. at p. 58.) "The presence or absence of bad faith by the police . . . must necessarily turn on the police's knowledge of the exculpatory value of the evidence at the time it was lost or destroyed." (Id. at p. 57, fn. *.)
It is not entirely clear that the failure to obtain evidence falls within " `what might loosely be called the area of constitutionally guaranteed access to evidence.' " (Youngblood, supra, 488 U.S. at p. 55; see id. at pp. 56-57 [emphasizing high court's unwillingness to read due process clause as imposing on police absolute duty to retain and preserve all material that might be of conceivable evidentiary value].) Although this court has suggested that there might be cases in which the failure to collect or obtain evidence would justify sanctions against the prosecution at trial, we have continued to recognize that, as a general matter, due process does not require the police to collect particular items of evidence. (See People v. Daniels (1991) 52 Cal.3d 815, 855; People v. Farmer (1989) 47 Cal.3d 888, 911; People v. Hogan (1982) 31 Cal.3d 815, 851 [duty to preserve material evidence already obtained does not include duty to obtain evidence or to conduct certain tests on it].) Even if the failure to collect evidence comes within the scope of Trombetta and Youngblood, however, defendant fail
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