State v. Huggett
2010 WI App 69, 324 Wis. 2d 786, 783 N.W.2d 675 (2010)
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Rule of Law:
The State's failure to preserve evidence that is apparently exculpatory violates a defendant's due process rights, regardless of whether the State acted in bad faith. This violation is established when the exculpatory value of the evidence was apparent before it was destroyed and is of such a nature that the defendant cannot obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means.
Facts:
- On January 20, 2008, John Peach, the ex-boyfriend of Kyle Huggett's girlfriend, Amy Kerbel, left threatening voicemail and text messages on both Huggett's and Kerbel's cell phones.
- After listening to the messages, Huggett and Kerbel planned for Kerbel to call 911 with her son if Peach came to their residence.
- Later that night, Peach arrived at the home, broke down the locked entry door, and entered the residence.
- While Kerbel was in a bedroom calling 911, Huggett retrieved a handgun.
- Huggett fired two shots at Peach as Peach advanced toward him inside the home.
- Peach ran out of the home and was later found dead in the yard from two gunshot wounds to the chest.
- Immediately after the incident, Huggett told the first responding officer, "He broke into my house. I thought he was going to kill me."
- Kerbel informed officers about the threatening messages, and an officer listened to one of the voicemails, recognized its evidentiary value, and seized both cell phones.
Procedural Posture:
- The State of Wisconsin charged Kyle Huggett in circuit court with one count of second-degree intentional homicide.
- Huggett's defense counsel made formal requests for the State to preserve all messages on the seized cell phones.
- The State subsequently informed the defense that it had failed to preserve the voicemails and that they were no longer accessible from the service provider.
- Huggett filed a motion in the circuit court to dismiss the charge, arguing a due process violation due to the State's failure to preserve exculpatory evidence.
- After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court granted Huggett's motion and dismissed the case with prejudice.
- The State, as the appellant, appealed the circuit court's dismissal order to the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin.
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Issue:
Does the State's failure to preserve apparently exculpatory voicemail messages, which are central to a defendant's self-defense claim and for which no comparable evidence is available, violate the defendant's due process rights, even if the State did not act in bad faith?
Opinions:
Majority - Hoover, P.J.
Yes. The State's failure to preserve the apparently exculpatory voicemail messages violated Huggett's due process rights because the evidence was central to his self-defense claim and no comparable evidence was available. The court reaffirmed the two-part test from State v. Greenwold: a due process violation occurs if police (1) fail to preserve evidence that is apparently exculpatory, or (2) act in bad faith by failing to preserve evidence that is potentially exculpatory. Here, the State conceded the voicemails were apparently exculpatory, so a bad faith analysis was unnecessary. The court rejected the State's argument that it did not have exclusive control, reasoning that by seizing the phones, the police created a reasonable expectation that they would preserve the associated electronic evidence, even if it was stored on a third-party server. Furthermore, the court found that witness testimony and text messages were not comparable to the actual audio recordings, as they could not convey the victim's tone, which was described as 'angry and yelling' and was crucial for evaluating the reasonableness of Huggett's belief that he was in imminent danger. Given the centrality of this irreplaceable evidence to presenting a complete defense, the trial court did not err in exercising its discretion to dismiss the case.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the stringent duty placed on the State in Wisconsin to preserve evidence that is clearly exculpatory. It solidifies the 'Greenwold' two-track test, making clear that for 'apparently exculpatory' evidence, the failure to preserve is a per se due process violation, without any need for the defense to prove bad faith. The case is significant for extending the State's preservation duty to electronic evidence not physically stored on a seized device, such as voicemails on a provider's server, when the State's actions create a reasonable expectation of preservation. This ruling raises the bar for what constitutes 'comparable evidence,' emphasizing that substitutes are inadequate when the original evidence possesses unique qualities, like tone of voice, that are critical to a key defense theory.
