The Court of Appeals recently reiterated two principles articulated years ago in State v. Wynia and several other cases in regards to chain of custody. State v. Moore is a DUI case involving a blood draw where not every single person in the chain of custody was subpoenaed, and the defense was also making an argument that the blood vial was not stored properly. The two important notes are as follows:
First, that chain of custody goes to weight of the evidence and not to admissibility. This is an argument that defense attorneys regularly make even though it is very well established and settled case law.
Second, the Court of Appeals reiterates the idea that the government is entitled to a presumption that once evidence is in the hands of the state that we assume that it is handled with regularity UNLESS there is an affirmative showing of bad faith or tampering by the defense. I'm sure we have all had cases where it feels like this threshold showing is a burden upon us as prosecutors, but that is not the case. Our burden is to make a sufficient showing that an exhibit is in the same condition as it was when it was collected, and if we can do that, the presumption is that the evidence/exhibit was handled with regularity. The court cited previous decisions that have stated that the party proffering evidence is not required to eliminate every conceivable possibility that evidence may have been altered. The fact remains that if the defense is going to make the argument that the evidence was mishandled or tampered with, they have to have evidence or information showing why they believe that. Simply not having one of the links in the chain of custody is not sufficient to make that argument.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision in allowing the evidence to be presented at trial.
The defendant in this case was sentenced incorrectly for their traffic violation, and the case was remanded for the limited purpose of imposing sentence as an infraction instead of a class C misdemeanor. You can read the entire opinion here: State v Moore
