Wood v. State

• Decision Date: 10 August 1981
• Docket Number: No. 11531,11531
• Citation: 632 P.2d 339,97 Nev. 363
• Parties: Antonio Wayne WOOD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Page 339

632 P.2d 339

97 Nev. 363

Antonio Wayne WOOD, Appellant, v. The STATE of Nevada, Respondent.

No. 11531.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Aug. 10, 1981.

William N. Dunseath, Washoe County Public Defender, and Michael B. McDonald, Deputy, Reno, for appellant.

Richard H. Bryan, Atty. Gen., Carson City, Calvin R. X. Dunlap, Washoe County Dist. Atty., and Edward B. Horn, Deputy Dist. Atty., Reno, for respondent.

OPINION

MANOUKIAN, Justice:

A jury convicted Antonio Wayne Wood for the suffocation death of his four and one-half month old son, a felony. N.R.S. 200.030. On appeal, appellant's sole contention is that the state violated standards of due process by failing to preserve sufficient of the victim's brain tissue specimens, evidence relevant to the cause of death. Although we agree that negligence occurred resulting in the loss of some evidence, such does not require reversal.

On March 19, 1978, Antonio Wood was left in charge of his son, Joseph, and his daughter, Christina (age nineteen months), while his wife went to a nearby laundromat. At 4:24 p. m., a person who identified himself as Tony Wood, called the Sparks Police Department requesting assistance in contacting his wife at the laundromat because his son was having difficulty breathing.

When Linda Wood returned to the apartment she found Joseph unconscious in his crib. The child was rushed to Washoe Medical Center, where Joseph was found to have no pulse and no spontaneous respiration. Through emergency procedures, a pulse was restored, although respiration depended upon life support systems. Joseph's condition was characterized as a brain damage coma, and after 48 hours in intensive care, having never regained consciousness, he died.

Wood initially maintained to police that Christina had crawled into the crib with Joseph and crawled on top of the baby apparently pushing his face into a diaper preventing his breathing. The medical symptoms were consistent with some type of suffocation. Wood, during police interviews, subsequently recanted his story and admitted that he had placed a diaper over Joseph's mouth for a prolonged period of time to quiet his crying. This prosecution ensued.

To prove motive and intent, the state introduced evidence of Wood's conversations with a co-employee about methods of killing a person in order to collect life insurance proceeds, and that Wood had purchased life insurance on Joseph's life. Wood had told the co-employee that he had previously attempted to kill his wife, and continued to discuss different ways that he might kill either his wife or one of his children or all of them. During the week preceding March 19, 1978, Wood told this co-employee that he had to do something soon, and that he shouldn't be surprised "if I (Wood) don't show up for work on Monday."

The defense maintained that the resultant death of Joseph was unintentional and that the death was not caused by strangulation but rather by some other medical phenomenon. Dr. Ellis, a board-certified neurologist and neuropathologist, specializing in the pathology of brain diseases in children, was called as an expert witness on behalf of Wood. Dr. Ellis testified that the brain of the deceased child did exhibit oxygen deficiency (anoxia), but that several processes producing such anoxia could have been initiated by the placing of the diaper over the mouth of the child for a brief period of time. Dr. Ellis disagreed with Dr. Campbell, who performed the autopsy, that the "immediate cause of death was due to the suffocation," and described four mechanisms which would retard the spontaneous respiration reflex, ¹ thus rendering the resultant death unintentional. The four mechanisms described by Dr. Ellis were: (1) continued obstruction of the airway; (2) laryngospasm; (3) vasovagal reflex, and (4) seizure.

Based upon his examination of the tissue samples preserved by the state, ² Dr. Ellis discounted the continued obstruction theory (suffocation) due to lack of bruises, coupled with his determination that the amount of brain damage was less than expected from his assessment of the history of the case. Dr. Ellis admitted that because he did not have specimens from the correct areas of the brain, his alternate explanations were merely theories. Nevertheless, he remained adamant that there was too much evidence to summarily dismiss the seizure theory. Claiming that the failure to preserve sufficient tissue samples to prove this alternate theory was a violation of his due process rights, Wood appeals.

We have often held that where evidence is lost as a result of inadequate governmental handling, a conviction may be reversed. Crockett v. State, 95 Nev. 859, 603 P.2d 1078 (1979); Howard v. State, 95 Nev. 580, 600 P.2d 214 (1979); Williams v. State, 95 Nev. 527, 598 P.2d 1144 (1979). See also United States v. Heiden, 508 F.2d 898 (9th Cir. 1974). The test...