Background
Oscar Orrantia, a Customs and Border Protection officer, was convicted by a jury of depriving a traveler of his Fourth Amendment rights and knowingly making a false entry in a record. The conviction stemmed from an incident where Orrantia pulled a man from his truck and threw him to the ground, subsequently filing a report containing false statements about the encounter. On appeal, Orrantia argued that the government violated his due process rights by deleting a video of a separate incident involving him under its standard retention policy.
The court’s reasoning
The court held that the Youngblood standard governs the claim because the exculpatory value of the deleted video was not apparent before its destruction. Under Youngblood, a defendant must show that the government acted in bad faith when destroying potentially useful evidence. The court found no bad faith because the video was deleted in accordance with a standard ninety-day retention policy before the government began its investigation into the charged conduct. The court also noted that the video’s exculpatory value was low, as it depicted a different incident and was not the only evidence of the officer’s motive and intent.
We conclude that no due process violation occurred under Trombetta or Youngblood.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces that government agencies acting under standard retention policies do not necessarily violate due process rights by destroying evidence unless the defendant can prove the destruction was done in bad faith.
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