CALIFORNIA v. TROMBETTA 467 US 479 (1984)
Police not required to
preserve the breath sample.
When stopped
in unrelated incidents on suspicion of drunken driving on California highways,
each respondent submitted to a Intoxilyzer (breath-analysis) test and
registered a blood-alcohol concentration high enough to be presumed to be
intoxicated under California law. Although it was technically feasible to
preserve samples of respondents' breath, the arresting officers, as was their
ordinary practice, did not do so. Respondents were then all charged with
driving while intoxicated. Prior to trial, the Municipal Court denied each
respondent's motion to suppress the Intoxilyzer test results on the ground that
the arresting officers had failed to preserve samples of respondents' breath
that the respondents claim would have enabled them to impeach the incriminating
test results. Ultimately, in consolidated proceedings, the California Court of
Appeal ruled in respondents' favor, concluding that due process demanded that
the arresting officers preserve the breath samples.
Held:
The Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require that law
enforcement agencies preserve breath samples in order to introduce the results
of breath-analysis tests at trial, and thus here the State's failure to
preserve breath samples for respondents did not constitute a violation of the
Federal Constitution.
(a) To the extent that respondents' breath samples came into the
California authorities' possession, it was for the limited purpose of providing
raw data to the Intoxilyzer. The evidence to be presented at trial was not the
breath itself but rather the Intoxilyzer results obtained from the breath
samples. The authorities did not destroy the breath samples in a calculated effort
to circumvent the due process requirement of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 , and its progeny that
the State disclose to criminal defendants material evidence in its possession,
but in failing to preserve the samples the authorities acted in good faith and
in accord with their normal practice.
(b) More importantly,
California's policy of not preserving breath samples is without constitutional
defect. The constitutional duty of the States to preserve evidence is limited
to evidence that might be expected to play a role in the suspect's defense. The
evidence must possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before it was
destroyed, and must also be of such a nature that the defendant would be unable
to obtain [467 U.S. 479, 480] comparable evidence by other reasonably
available means. Neither of these conditions was met on the facts of this case.
