People v. Wyman
| Decision Date | 02 April 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 89SA405,89SA405 |
| Citation | 788 P.2d 1278 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Peter George WYMAN, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Alexander M. Hunter, Dist. Atty., and Bryan W. Quiram, Deputy Dist. Atty., Boulder, for plaintiff-appellant.
Law Offices of Paul E. Vranesic, Michael A. McManus, Denver, for defendant-appellee.
This is an interlocutory appeal by the prosecution pursuant to C.A.R. 4.1, which followed the suppression of the results of a blood test by the district court. We reverse and remand with directions.
The defendant, Peter George Wyman, was involved in an automobile collision in Longmont, Colorado, on October 27, 1988. He was injured in the collision, and two persons in the other automobile suffered serious injuries. At the hospital, in the course of preparing the defendant for treatment, a vial of suspected cocaine fell out of his pocket and was given to a Longmont police officer. The officer performed a field test on the contents of the vial, which registered positive. Two blood samples were also drawn from the defendant by a phlebotomist. The Longmont police delivered one sample to Roche Biomedical Laboratory (Roche) and the other was stored for the defendant's use. Roche sent part of the sample to National Medical Services (NMS) in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania for further testing. The results of the tests were received by the Longmont police department on February 1, 1989. On February 22, 1989, charges of careless driving, § 42-4-1204(1), 17 C.R.S. (1984 & 1989 Supp.), and possession of a schedule II controlled substance, § 18-18-105, 8B C.R.S. (1986 & 1989 Supp.), were filed with the county court and a felony summons was issued.
The defendant appeared to answer the charges in the district court on March 21, 1989. On April 12, 1989, the prosecution moved to dismiss the careless driving charge and filed new charges of vehicular assault, § 18-3-205, 8B C.R.S. (1986), and driving under the influence of a controlled substance, § 42-4-1202(1)(c), 17 C.R.S. (1984 & 1989 Supp.). On April 24, 1989, after the enhanced charges were filed, defense counsel requested and obtained the refrigerated blood sample that had been preserved for the defendant. Dr. Kathy Verdeal examined the defendant's blood sample on July 26, 1989, but did not test the sample because it was too old and there likely would not be a positive result.
At the September 13, 1989, motions hearing the defense counsel moved to suppress and estop the prosecution from using the results of the blood test because the sample preserved for the defendant was so old that any drugs within the sample had metabolized to the point that the drugs could no longer be detected. Defendant's expert, Dr. Kathy Verdeal, expressed the opinion that the blood could not have been tested when defense counsel obtained the sample and possibly could not have been tested a month earlier. The prosecution sought a continuance to present rebuttal evidence, but the trial court concluded that further evidence was not necessary because the prosecution was "estopped" from using the results of the blood tests for failure to preserve a sample for the defendant. The blood sample drawn for the defendant was refrigerated and kept under the same conditions as the prosecution's sample.
The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment does not invariably require a state to preserve evidence which might be favorable to the accused when dealing with evidentiary material "of which no more can be said than it could have been subjected to tests." Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 337, 102...
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Crosby v. Watkins
...was lost or destroyed; and (2) the defendant must be unable to obtain comparable evidence through other available means. People v. Wyman, 788 P.2d 1278 (Colo.1990). Here, defendant maintains that the destroyed tape recordings had exculpatory value because the impeachment of a victim's accou......
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People v. Eason
...the evidence in bad faith. See Arizona v. Youngblood , 488 U.S. 51, 57–58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988) ; People v. Wyman , 788 P.2d 1278, 1279 (Colo. 1990) ; People v. Young , 2014 COA 169, ¶ 74, 412 P.3d 676. ¶ 39 If we determine that a due process violation occurred, then we mus......
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People v. Bachofer
...that the state agents acted in bad faith. Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988); People v. Wyman, 788 P.2d 1278, 1279 (Colo.1990). Here, we assume that (1) significant information was lost when the tarps were removed, and (2) the missing information m......
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People v. Smith, 94CA1957
...show bad faith on the part of the police, failure to preserve useful evidence does not constitute a denial of due process. People v. Wyman, 788 P.2d 1278 (Colo.1990); see also Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 Here, after finding the grey and white granular ......
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Chapter 3 - § 3.8 • DISMISSAL BASED ON LOSS OF EVIDENCE
...evidence before a due process violation could be shown. The Colorado Supreme Court seemed to adopt this requirement in People v. Wyman, 788 P.2d 1278 (Colo. 1990). Second, was the exculpatory nature of the second sample apparent at the time of its loss or destruction? The BAC result from th......