Lost or Destroyed Evidence & Jury Instructions (Willits)
Rulings about evidence the police or prosecution lost, destroyed, or failed to keep, and the jury instructions (such as Arizona's Willits instruction) that may follow. Summaries from Criminal Defense Resources™ are general education for pro per/pro se defendants and families, not legal advice.
3 rulings, newest first.
State v. Glissendorf
The Arizona Supreme Court explained when a defendant is entitled to a Willits instruction: the defendant must show that the State failed to preserve material and reasonably accessible evidence that could have had a tendency to exonerate the accused, and that this caused prejudice. The defendant does not have to prove that the lost evidence would actually have cleared him. In this case a detective's recorded interview of the accuser had been lost, the trial court refused the instruction, and because the State could not show the error was harmless, the court reversed the convictions.
Arizona v. Youngblood
The U.S. Supreme Court held that when police fail to preserve evidence that is only potentially useful to the defense, there is no violation of federal due process unless the defendant can show the police acted in bad faith. In this case, police did not refrigerate clothing or test samples in time, which the Court described as at worst negligent, so the Arizona Court of Appeals' reversal of the conviction was itself reversed.
State v. Willits
The Arizona Supreme Court held that the trial judge should have given the jury an instruction the defense asked for: if the jury found that the State had destroyed or failed to keep evidence, it could infer that the evidence would have been unfavorable to the State. Because the instruction was refused, the court reversed the conviction and sent the case back for a new trial.
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