Discovery

The City of Woonsocket appealed the decision of the trial court granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (“refusal to submit to a chemical test”) based on the City’s destruction of a booking video. The City argued that defendant did not meet his burden to prove that the City had destroyed the video in bad faith. In State v. Garcia, 643 A.2d 180 (R.I. 1994), the Rhode Island Supreme Court adopted a three-prong test from U.S. v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988), that laid out when police destruction of evidence constituted a violation of defendant’s due process rights in criminal proceedings. However, the Appeals Panel adopted the analysis of civil evidence spoliation set forth in Tancrelle v. Friendly Ice Cream Corp., 756 A.2d 744 (R.I. 2000) and Farrell v. Connetti Trailer Sales, Inc., 727 A.2d 183 (R.I. 1999) to apply to civil violation cases. The Appeals Panel noted that it had previously followed criminal standards of evidence destruction in Garcia, but the court now would follow civil evidence spoliation from Tancrelle. Under Tancrelle, the doctrine of evidence spoliation states that the intentional or negligent destruction of evidence “may give rise to the inference that the evidence was unfavorable to that party” but that bad faith is not a required element of proof to allow the inference. In Farrell, if a party can show bad faith then a dismissal may be granted against the party who destroyed the evidence. The Appeals Panel, applying both tests, held that the defendant failed to produce evidence of bad faith. Accordingly, the decision of the trial court was reversed.

Goulart, M., filed a concurring opinion, noting that he would apply the Garcia standard in Traffic Tribunal cases because they are “quasi-criminal” in nature.

City of Woonsocket v. Alan DeBlois, No. T13-0017 (May 4, 2016).pdf