Court Absolves Police in Neglect to Keep, Analyze Vital Evidence

The Supreme Court ruled today that police do not violate the rights of criminal defendants when, through negligence, they fail to preserve vital evidence or to conduct state-of-the-art laboratory tests.

The justices, voting 6 to 3, reinstated the conviction of an Arizona man in the kidnaping and sodomizing of a 10-year-old boy.

A lower court had thrown out the conviction and 10-year prison sentence of Larry Youngblood because police failed to preserve properly semen samples on the child’s body and clothing.

But today Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in his opinion for the high court, said, “The situation here is no different than a prosecution for drunk driving that rests on police observation alone.”

“The defendant is free to argue . . . that a Breathalyzer test might have been exculpatory,” he said. “But the police do not have a constitutional duty to perform any particular tests.”

Rehnquist said that as long as the failure to conduct the tests was a result of police negligence, and not bad faith, the rights of the defendant are not violated.

In another decision, the justices ruled that an Ohio court erroneously upheld the rape, robbery and assault convictions of a man whose court-appointed lawyer withdrew from the case. Voting 8 to 1, the high court said the Ohio Court of Appeals should not have decided on Steven Anthony Penson’s appeal of rape, robbery and assault convictions without first appointing a new attorney to handle the case.