Schlegel v. State

• Decision Date: 10 March 2020
• Docket Number: NO. 2018-KA-00214-COA,2018-KA-00214-COA
• Citation: 303 So.3d 30
• Parties: Justyn Matthew SCHLEGEL a/k/a Justyn Schlegel, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi Appellee
• Court: Mississippi Court of Appeals

303 So.3d 30

Justyn Matthew SCHLEGEL a/k/a Justyn Schlegel, Appellant

v.STATE of Mississippi Appellee

NO. 2018-KA-00214-COA

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

March 10, 2020

Rehearing Denied June 30, 2020

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: OFFICE OF STATE PUBLIC DEFENDER BY: JUSTIN TAYLOR COOK

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLEE: OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BY: KAYLYN HAVRILLA McCLINTON, JACKSON

BEFORE CARLTON, P.J., WESTBROOKS AND McCARTY, JJ.

CARLTON, P.J., FOR THE COURT:

¶1. A Neshoba County Circuit Court jury convicted Justyn Schlegel of second-degree murder. The trial court sentenced Schlegel to serve forty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC).

¶2. Schlegel now appeals his conviction and sentence. On appeal, Schlegel asserts nine assignments of error. After our review, we find no error. We therefore affirm Schlegel's conviction and sentence.

FACTS

¶3. On June 14, 2015, Schlegel was incarcerated in the Neshoba County Jail. That morning, Schlegel and Rexdale Henry were the only two inmates housed in a cell known as Detox 2. At approximately 10:15 a.m., jail staff checked on Henry after observing that he was unresponsive in the cell. Jail staff discovered that Henry had died. An autopsy revealed Henry's cause of death was multiple blunt trauma, with the manner of death being homicide.

¶4. After an investigation by the Neshoba County Sheriff's Department and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, Schlegel was arrested for Henry's murder. The grand jury indicted Schlegel for first-degree murder pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated section 97-3-19(1)(a) (Rev. 2014).

¶5. A jury trial was held in November 2017. After the State rested, the defense moved for a directed verdict, which the trial court denied. The defense also made a motion to dismiss Schlegel's charges based on the spoliation of evidence. The defense argued that the State failed in its duty to preserve surveillance video recordings that showed various angles of the jail and were relevant evidence in this case. After hearing arguments from both parties, the trial court denied Schlegel's motion to dismiss due to Schlegel's failure to show any bad faith by the State.

¶6. The jury found Schlegel guilty of second-degree murder, and the trial court sentenced Schlegel to serve forty years in the custody of the MDOC. Schlegel filed posttrial motions, which the trial court denied. Schlegel timely appealed.

¶7. On appeal, Schlegel asserts nine assignments of error. For purposes of clarity, we have combined several of these issues.

DISCUSSION

I. Preservation of Evidence

¶8. Schlegel first argues that the State violated his due process rights by losing or otherwise failing to preserve the surveillance video recorded by the jail's surveillance cameras around the time of Henry's death as well as the surveillance video recording from a camera facing another angle of the jail. The record also reflects that the only surveillance video recordings in evidence were from the video camera facing Detox 2. However, Investigator Ralph Sciple of the Neshoba County Sheriff's Department and Agent Heather Richardson of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation testified that another video camera was located by the sally port entrance,¹ which showed another angle of the jail.²

¶9. "The State has the duty to preserve evidence ... which might be expected to play a significant role in the suspect's defense." Northup v. State , 793 So. 2d 618, 623 (¶16) (Miss. 2001) (internal quotation mark omitted). To determine whether the State violated Schlegel's due process rights based upon destruction or spoliation of evidence, Schlegel must show the following:

(1) the evidence in question must possess an exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed; (2) the evidence must be of such a nature that [Schlegel] would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means; and (3) the prosecution's destruction of the evidence must have been in bad faith.

Robinson v. State , 247 So. 3d 1212, 1234 (¶56) (Miss. 2018), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 829, 202 L.Ed.2d 603 (2019). Schlegel must meet all three of these requirements to successfully prove that his due process rights were violated. Childs v. State , 133 So. 3d 348, 350 (¶10) (Miss. 2013).

¶10. Upon our review, we find that Schlegel has failed to prove the third prong of this test. "Unless a criminal defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve potentially useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process." Young v. State , 236 So. 3d 49, 56 (¶31) (Miss. 2017). The supreme court has explained that "[b]ad faith, the third and final prong, is defined as ‘not simply bad judgment or negligence, but rather conscious doing of a wrong because of dishonest purpose or moral obliquity.’ " Robinson , 247 So. 3d at 1234-35 (¶57) (quoting Murray v. State , 849 So. 2d 1281, 1286 (¶19) (Miss. 2003) ). We recognize that "[a] due-process violation occurs only ‘where the spoliation or destruction was intentional and indicates fraud and a desire to suppress the truth.’ " Id. at 1235 (¶57) (quoting Tolbert v. State , 511 So. 2d 1368, 1372 (Miss. 1987) ).

¶11. Schlegel argues that the State's actions of failing to copy the video evidence from a system the State knew, or should have known, would delete itself "is textbook bad faith." Schlegel claims, however, that his ability to show bad faith is restricted by the fact that the video recording itself is destroyed, and he contends that "the bad faith requirement is a burden most defendants can never reach, absent a confession by the State to the effect of ‘I destroyed the evidence because it was exculpatory.’ "³

¶12. Regarding the video recording showing another angle of the jail, Agent Richardson testified that all of the video recordings from the camera above the sally port entrance showed "the same things" as the video recording from the camera facing Detox 2. Agent Richardson testified that she determined that the camera facing Detox 2 showed a better angle of the cell, and she turned over the video recordings that "were substantial to the case." Agent Richardson testified that she believed the other video recordings were still on the system.

¶13. After the State rested, Schlegel moved for a directed verdict and to dismiss the charges against him for spoliation of evidence. Schlegel argued that during Agent Richardson's testimony, the defense learned that Agent Richardson once had in her possession a video recording from a different camera angle than the video recording admitted into evidence. During arguments on Schlegel's motion to dismiss, Agent Richardson clarified that she did not deliberately try to conceal any video recordings from another angle; she simply determined that the camera facing Detox 2 showed a better angle of the cell. Agent Richardson confirmed that if the camera above the sally port entrance had showed a better picture of Henry or Schlegel's movements, she would have used the recording from that camera instead.

¶14. Investigator Sciple also testified at the hearing on Schlegel's motion to dismiss. He initially stated that he did not review the video from the camera above the sally port entrance because he "[did not] believe you could see in the cell itself from that camera." Investigator Sciple later clarified at trial that "I'm sure I reviewed [the recording] back then, but I did not see anything to record." Investigator Sciple testified that if there was any evidence on the video recording from the camera above the sally port entrance to show that Schlegel did not kill Henry, he would have recorded it.

¶15. When asked whether the video recording from the camera above the sally port entrance still exists, Investigator Sciple responded "It might not now, but it did at that time, yes, sir." Investigator Sciple explained that if you do not download and preserve surveillance video recordings on to the jail's software system, the recording "just rolls over and rolls over until it disappears." Investigator Sciple estimated that it takes several months before video recordings are deleted from the system. Investigator Sciple testified that he did not deliberately destroy any video recordings nor did he let recordings get erased for the purpose of preventing the defense from using the recordings.

¶16. In Ellis v. State , 77 So. 3d 1119, 1123 (¶14) (Miss. Ct. App. 2011), Kenneth Ray Ellis argued his due process rights were violated because a state trooper failed to preserve a memory card containing a video recording of a traffic stop that eventually led to Ellis's DUI arrest. On appeal, this Court found that Ellis failed to show bad faith because by the time Ellis's attorney requested a copy of the video recording, the video recording had already been erased in the usual process of recording over older videos on the memory card. Id. at 1124 (¶21). The officer testified that unless there was something unusual about the stop, he simply records over the video. Id. The officer also testified that he did not record over Ellis's stop to prevent it from being disclosed. Id. This Court found that because the officer had acted "in good faith and in accord with his normal practice," no due process violation occurred. Id.

¶17. In the present case, our review of the record reflects no evidence of bad faith on the part of the State regarding the video recording. Schlegel's claim of a due process violation therefore fails. See Mason v. State , 247 So. 3d 362, 364 (¶6) (Miss. Ct. App. 2018).

A. Brady Violation

¶18. Schlegel also asserts that the State violated Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), by failing to turn over the video recording at issue. Schlegel argues that prior to trial, he filed a motion specifically requesting "any physical evidence and photographs relevant to the case" and "any exculpatory material concerning the [d]efendant."

¶19. In Brady , the United States Supreme...