Discovery

The Providence Police Department appealed the trial judge’s decision dismissing Defendant’s charged violation of G.L. 1956 § 21-28-4.01(c)(iii) (possession of marijuana, one ounce or less, 18 years or older). At a scheduled trial date Defendant sought a continuance to request a police report. The trial judge granted the continuance and set a new trial date. In the interim, the Defendant, through his attorney, mailed a discovery request to the Providence Police Department and received no response. On the new trial date, after finding that the Providence Police Department had enough time to supply an answer to the discovery request and failed to so, the trial judge dismissed the charges pursuant to Traffic Tribunal Rule of Procedure 11. The Appeals Panel noted that Rule 11(b) “requires that the court issue an order for discovery.” Because there was no record of any such order issued by the court, let alone a Motion to Compel filed and granted by the court, the Appeals Panel concluded that there was no violation of Rule 11, making dismissal by the trial judge premature. Accordingly, the Appeals Panel granted The Providence Department’s appeal and remanded the case for trial.

State of Rhode Island v. L.F., No. T16-0021 (August 22, 2017).pdf

Discovery

The Providence Police Department appealed the trial judge’s decision dismissing Defendant’s charged violation of G.L. 1956 § 21-28-4.01(c)(iii) (possession of marijuana, one ounce or less, 18 years or older) based upon an alleged discovery violation. The Defendant, through his attorney, had mailed a discovery request to the Providence Police Department. The Appeals Panel noted that, “[u]nder Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal Rules, service must be made to the proper party to the litigation.” The Appeals Panel reasoned that because the Providence Police Department was not represented by counsel at trial, the Defendant’s discovery request should have been served directly upon the “prosecuting law enforcement officer,” whom it deemed to be the officer who had written the summons. The Appeals Panel also suggested that, because the discovery request was sent by regular mail rather than personally served by hand upon either the prosecuting law enforcement officer or his office, service was not proper under Traffic Tribunal Rule of Procedure 27. The Appeals Panel granted The Providence Department’s appeal and remanded the case for trial.

State of Rhode Island v. L.F., No. T16-0021 (August 22, 2017).pdf

Discovery

Defendant appealed a decision of the trial judge sustaining a violation of G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to a chemical test). Defendant was taken into custody under a suspicion of driving under the influence. At the police station, Defendant agreed to take a chemical test, but initially failed to supply enough air into the breathalyzer. The officer gave Defendant a second opportunity to give a sufficient breath sample, but Defendant refused to take the test unless the officer informed him of when the breathalyzer was last calibrated. The test was then terminated, and Defendant was charged with the aforementioned violation. Defendant argued that a negative inference should have been drawn against the State because the video surveillance provided to Defendant lacked audio and failed to depict the refusal. Rule 11(e) of the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal Rules provides that a discovery “request shall be made only within fourteen (14) days after the first appearance or at such reasonable later time as the court may permit.” Here, Defendant’s discovery request was almost two months past the deadline, and Defendant failed to present any evidence to justify the delay. Furthermore, Defendant asserted that the State failed to preserve video evidence of the refusal. “Speculative assertions as to the existence of documents do not suffice to sustain a motion for spoliation of evidence.” See Tri-County Motors, Inc. v. Am. Suzuki’s Motor Corp., 494 F. Supp. 2d 161, 177 (E.D.N.Y. 2007). Defendant’s conclusion that the video was improperly withheld or destroyed was merely an assertion that was not supported by “even a scintilla of evidence that another video exist[ed].” As such, the Appeals Panel held that the trial judge’s decision to not draw a negative inference against the State was not affected by error of law. Accordingly, the Appeals Panel affirmed the decision of the trial judge.

State of Rhode Island v. Abraham Kaba, No. T15-0032 (April 8, 2016).pdf

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

Discovery

Defendant appealed the decision of the trial judge sustaining the violation of R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1(b) (refusal to submit). The District Court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss on a related charge, which stemmed from the same incident, because the Woonsocket Police failed to comply with a discovery request to produce the booking and rights video from the night of the arrest. Here, the defendant argued that the trial judge erred in disregarding the District Court’s ruling and sustaining the charge of violating § 31-27-2.1. The Appeals Panel held that the District Court and the Traffic Tribunal are different courts and have different jurisdictions and procedural rules. The defendant failed to follow the Traffic Tribunal’s procedures for requesting the booking and rights video tape. Accordingly, the trial judge was not required to give weight to the District Court’s ruling and, therefore, did not err in sustaining the charge against the defendant.City of Woonsocket v. Tristan R. Fraser, C.A. No. T13-0027 (January 21, 2014).pdf

Discovery

Defendant appealed the decision of the trial magistrate sustaining the violations of R.I.G.L. 1956 §§ 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to a chemical test) and 31-14-3 (conditions requiring reduced speed).  Defendant argued that his due process rights were violated when the State failed to deliver in discovery copies of the Officer’s initial recorded statements or initial written narrative because the statements had a material bearing on his guilt or innocence.  The Panel explained that, in order to demonstrate a due process violation based on the destruction of exculpatory evidence under the “tripartite” test adopted by the Rhode Island Supreme Court in State v. Garcia, 643 A.2d 180, 185 (R.I. 1994), a defendant must show: (1) the evidence possessed exculpatory value that was apparent before the evidence was destroyed; (2) the Defendant would be unable to obtain comparable evidence by other reasonable means; and (3) the failure to preserve the exculpatory evidence amounted to bad faith on the part of the state.  Id.  The Panel explained that the Defendant failed to satisfy all three prongs of the test because: 1) there had been no showing that the evidence would exonerate or cast any doubt on the credibility of Officer’s trial testimony; 2) the final written report differed only in grammatical changes and revisions indicating the type of medication the defendant was regularly taking at the time of arrest; and 3) there was no showing of bad faith because the police regularly destroy initial field notes before submitting their final reports.  Accordingly, the Panel held that the trial magistrate’s decision did not prejudice the due process rights of the Defendant and sustained the charged violations.

State of Rhode Island v. James Estey, Jr., C.A. No. T10-0029 (June 9, 2010).pdf

Discovery

Defendant appealed the decision of the trial magistrate sustaining the violation of R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to a chemical test). At trial, the defendant’s motion to dismiss based on the state’s non-compliance with discovery order was denied. However, since a copy of a videotape had not been produced for the defense, the trial magistrate allowed for a continuance or the recall of witnesses after the tape was produced. Here, the Court held that the defendant was not entitled to a dismissal because her attorney had seen the tape, and the state had a limited opportunity to comply with the order and eventually did comply with it. Furthermore, the remedy for the delay was within the trial court’s discretion under Rule 11 of the Traffic Tribunal Rules of Procedure. Additionally, the remedies the trial magistrate put forth did not constitute an abuse of that discretion. Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court’s decision sustaining the charged violation against the defendant.
Noonan M., dissenting: The magistrate believes the charge should have been dismissed because of the Warwick Police Department’s contemptuous behavior in ignoring an order of the court for 19 months. Furthermore, the trial magistrate misapplied Rule 12 of the Traffic Tribunal Rules of Procedure and the defendant did all that was required of her under Rule 11. Therefore, the trial magistrate’s decision constituted an abuse of discretion and the case should have been dismissed.
*Note: On appeal, the District Court reversed the majority and dismissed the charge against the defendant.
City of Warwick v. Nicole Cianci, C.A. T 09-0015-1 (December 9, 2009).pdf

Discovery

Defendant appealed the decision of the trial magistrate sustaining the violation of R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to a chemical test). The Appeals Panel held that, although the state failed to account for the breath test cards indicating that the defendant produced a deficient sample, this was not grounds for dismissal. The Court held that the failure to produce the cards did not cause inordinate delay, expense or frustration, and was not part of a pattern of continuous noncompliance with discovery orders. Therefore, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by not dismissing the charge. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the decision of the trial magistrate sustaining the violation against the defendant.

State of Rhode Island v. Abel Pedroso C.A. No T09-0025.pdf

Discovery

Defendant appealed the decision of the trial judge sustaining the violation of R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to chemical test). Defendant argued that the violation should be dismissed because the police did not send a supplemental discovery package, which included the incident report of a witness who observed the defendant, until three weeks after the trial. The Court held that the defendant was not prejudiced because he had not submitted a discovery request, there was no ongoing discovery, and he did not make a motion for discovery. Moreover, the police did not possess the incident report or have knowledge of the information contained within it because the witness did not submit the report to the police until after the trial. Accordingly, the Court held that neither the state nor the police failed to comply with a discovery order. Thus, the Court sustained the violation.Town of Portsmouth v. Jesse Faria, C.A. No. T09-0068 (July 1, 2009).pdf

Discovery

The State appealed the trial magistrate’s decision to dismiss the charged violation of R.I.G.L. 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit to chemical test). The State argued that the trial magistrate misapplied the three-part analysis set out in State v. Garcia, 643 A.2d 180 (R.I. 1994), to determine whether the failure of law enforcement to preserve evidence amounted to an infringement of a defendant’s due process rights. Here, defense counsel sent a letter to the police department asking for a copy of a videotape depicting the Defendant in the police station at the time of his arrest.  The police department responded with information about how to review and copy the videotape, and subsequently “recycled” it before the Defendant had an opportunity to view it. Garcia requires a defendant to establish: (1) that the evidence possessed an apparent exculpatory value; (2) that comparable evidence is unobtainable by reasonably available means; and (3) that the state destroyed the evidence in bad faith. The Panel held that the trial magistrate did not have competent evidence to find that the videotape was exculpatory where defense counsel argued only that viewing the videotape the videotape was necessary in order to “know exactly what happened in regards to the purported refusal.” The Panel noted that the mere possibility that the videotape could have exculpated the Defendant was not enough. The Panel also held that the trial magistrate misapplied the prevailing legal authority of State v. Werner, 851 A.2d 1093, 1106 (R.I. 2004), for “bad faith” by finding that the police department’s negligent “recycling” of the videotape amounted to bad faith. Accordingly, the Panel concluded that the trial magistrate’s decision to dismiss the charged violation was in error and remanded for a hearing on the merits.

State of Rhode Island v. Brian Priest, C.A. T08-0048 (September 17, 2008).pdf