Saturday, March 12, 2016

Losing Ambiguous Text Messages Does Not Violate Due Process

A defendant's due process rights were not violated when the government failed to preserve text messages he had sent regarding the assault.
 
United States v. Harry, 2016 BL 58901, 10th Cir., No. 14-2160, 2/29/16

     During an investigation, incoming text messages were recovered from the defendant's phone, but the prosecution was unable to obtain any outgoing text messages. The defendant argued that the outgoing messages were exculpatory, and the prosecution's failure to preserve them violated his due process rights.

     The court ruled that the failure to preserve evidence violates due process only if the evidence was exculpatory and its exculpatory value was apparent before its loss. If the evidence was not obviously exculpatory but "potentially useful" the failure does not violate due process, absent bad faith. Here, the exculpatory value was not apparent, and there was no evidence of bad faith.

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/United_States_v_Harry_No_142160_2016_BL_58901_10th_Cir_Feb_29_201?1457718203

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