U.S. v. Beckstead

• Decision Date: 05 September 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-4178.,05-4178.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joshua Chad BECKSTEAD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

500 F.3d 1154

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joshua Chad BECKSTEAD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 05-4178.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

September 5, 2007.

Mary C. Corporon, Corporon, Williams & Bradford, P.C., Salt Lake City, UT, for Defendant-Appellant Joshua Chad Beckstead.

Diana Hagen, Assistant United States Attorney (Stephen J. Sorenson, United States Attorney, with her on the brief), Salt Lake City, UT, for Plaintiff-Appellee United States of America.

Before HARTZ, EBEL and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

In this direct criminal appeal, Defendant-Appellant Joshua Beckstead challenges four convictions and a twenty-year sentence resulting from his involvement with a methamphetamine lab. Among other things, Beckstead claims that the Government denied him due process because officers seized and immediately disposed of the methamphetamine lab pursuant to standard police department policy. The department's policy was developed in response to the dangers generally presented by methamphetamine labs and the chemicals associated with them. But Beckstead argues that by destroying this evidence, officers deprived him of any opportunity to test the lab for fingerprints which might have eliminated him as the lab's operator, and deprived him of the ability to challenge the amounts of chemicals seized. Those weights helped determine the length of Beckstead's sentence. Because Beckstead has failed to show that the police officers acted in bad faith when they destroyed this potentially exculpatory evidence, we conclude the Government did not deny Beckstead due process. Having jurisdiction to consider this appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reject this challenge, as well as Beckstead's other appellate arguments, and AFFIRM his convictions and sentence.

I. BACKGROUND

The evidence presented at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the Government, see United States v. Torres-Laranega, 476 F.3d 1148, 1157 (10th Cir.2007) (reviewing sufficiency of evidence supporting conviction), petition for cert. filed, (U.S. May 22, 2007) (No. 06-11907), established the following: Beckstead bought 500 grams of iodine and some ephedrine from the friend of a friend in January 2004. A few weeks later, he bought 8,000 pills, or 480 grams, of ephedrine from the same person. These ingredients can be used to manufacture methamphetamine. In fact, the amount of iodine Beckstead purchased, combined with other ingredients, could produce 166.67 grams of methamphetamine, while the amount of ephedrine Beckstead purchased could produce 240 grams of methamphetamine.

On February 9, 2004, two police officers saw Beckstead and a woman leave an apartment building, get into a black car and apparently drive away. The officers were at the apartment complex investigating an anonymous tip about a methamphetamine lab. Acting on that tip, officers found such a lab in apartment number nine, which was rented by Beckstead's former girlfriend, Ray Lynn Morris. In addition, officers found 1,233.2 grams of red phosphorus, as well as other chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine. With this amount of red phosphorus, an individual could, if he had enough of the other required ingredients, manufacture 1,233.2 grams of methamphetamine. During a search of Morris' apartment, officers also found Beckstead's driver's license in one of the bedrooms.

As officers were leaving the apartment, after disassembling the lab, they saw the car in which Beckstead had earlier driven away, parked again in the apartment complex's parking lot. In that car, which was registered to Beckstead's parents, officers found additional components for a methamphetamine lab.

The United States indicted both Beckstead and Ray Lynn Morris' father, Kevin James, on four charges: 1) attempting to manufacture fifty grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846; and possessing 2) pseudoephedrine 3) red phosphorus and 4) iodine with the intent to manufacture methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(c)(1).¹

Beckstead filed a motion to dismiss based on the Government's destruction of the evidence. In that motion, Beckstead argued, apparently pursuant to California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413 (1984), that the Government acted in bad faith. The district court denied that motion, implicitly finding that the Government did not act in bad faith.

James pled guilty and testified against Beckstead at his trial. James, who had been staying at his daughter's apartment for a few days at the time officers discovered the methamphetamine lab, testified that it was Beckstead and several other individuals who were operating the lab in Ray Lynn Morris' apartment.

A jury convicted Beckstead of all four charges. Pursuant to 21 U.S.C § 841(b)(1)(A), Beckstead's conviction on count one subjected him to a mandatory minimum twenty-year sentence because he had a prior conviction for operating a methamphetamine lab.² The presentence report ("PSR") provided for a higher advisory guideline sentencing range of between 360 months and life imprisonment. At sentencing, however, the district court concluded that a sentence below that guideline range was warranted and instead imposed the statutory mandatory minimum twenty-year sentence. Beckstead now appeals both his convictions and sentence.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Destruction of potentially exculpatory evidence

Beckstead argues that the Government deprived him of due process because officers immediately seized and destroyed the methamphetamine lab components and related chemicals found at Morris' apartment and in Beckstead's car.³ Beckstead contends that by destroying this potentially exculpatory evidence, officers deprived him of any opportunity to test the lab for fingerprints which might have eliminated him as the lab's operator, and deprived him of the ability to challenge the amounts of chemicals seized.

To establish that the Government deprived him of due process by destroying potentially exculpatory evidence, Beckstead must show both that 1) the evidence destroyed was potentially exculpatory and 2) the government acted in bad faith in destroying it.⁴ See United States v. Bohl, 25 F.3d 904, 910-11 (10th Cir.1994). For purposes of this appeal, we will assume that the destroyed evidence was potentially exculpatory and will consider here only whether the Government acted in bad faith when officers destroyed it.⁵

"[U]nless 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 of law." Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58, 109 S.Ct. 333, 102 L.Ed.2d 281 (1988); see also Snow v. Sirmons, 474 F.3d 693, 716 (10th Cir.2007).

[W]henever potentially excuplatory evidence is permanently lost, courts face the treacherous task of divining the import of materials whose contents are unknown and, very often, disputed. Part of it stems from our unwillingness to read the fundamental fairness requirement of the Due Process Clause as imposing on the police an undifferentiated and absolute duty to retain and to preserve all material that might be of conceivable evidentiary significance in a particular prosecution. We think that requiring a defendant to show bad faith on the part of the police both limits the extent of the police's obligation to preserve evidence to reasonable bounds and confines it to that class of cases where the interests of justice most clearly require it, i.e., those cases in which the police themselves by their conduct indicate that the evidence could form a basis for exonerating the defendant.

Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57-58, 109 S.Ct. 333 (quotations, citations omitted); see also Illinois v. Fisher, 540 U.S. 544, 547-48, 124 S.Ct. 1200, 157 L.Ed.2d 1060 (2004) (per curiam); Snow, 474 F.3d at 716.

We review the district court's determination that the Government did not act in bad faith for clear error. See Gomez, 191 F.3d at 1219. Beckstead bears the burden of establishing that the Government acted in bad faith. See Bohl, 25 F.3d at 913.

The presence or absence of bad faith necessarily turns on the Government's knowledge of the evidence's potentially exculpatory value. See Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 56 n. *, 109 S.Ct. 333. Generally, however, destroying the evidence according to "an established procedure," as the Government did here, "precludes a finding of bad faith absent other compelling evidence." Gomez, 191 F.3d at 1219 (quotation omitted).

This court considers several factors in determining whether the Government acted in bad faith, see Bohl, 25 F.3d at 911-13:

1) Did the Government have explicit notice that Beckstead believed the methamphetamine lab and its chemicals were exculpatory? See id. at 911. In this case, the Government appears to have destroyed this evidence before Beckstead had an attorney or any opportunity to notify government officials that the lab and its chemicals were potentially exculpatory. Cf. id. (noting Government "was explicitly placed on notice that [the defendants] believed" the evidence was potentially exculpatory where defendants sent the government numerous letters to that effect); United States v. Cooper, 983 F.2d 928, 931 (9th Cir.1993) (determining Government was on notice that lab equipment was potentially exculpatory where, during pre-seizure investigation, defendant's parole officer and the lab's landlord reported that the business operating the lab claimed it was for legitimate scientific purposes; and after seizure, but before the Government destroyed the evidence, Government agents were again told lab equipment was set up for legitimate purposes and was structurally incapable of producing methamphetamine). In this case, while Beckstead admittedly did not have much of an opportunity to notify the Government that this evidence was potentially exculpatory, neither did the...