UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-4365
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
ANDREA BLOODWORTH, a/k/a Andre Thettle Green,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, District Judge.
(4:06-cr-00337-TLW-1)
Submitted: October 28, 2010 Decided: February 22, 2011
Before WILKINSON, SHEDD, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Janis Richardson Hall, Greenville, South Carolina, for
Appellant. William N. Nettles, United States Attorney, Jeffrey
Mikell Johnson, Robert F. Daley, Jr., Assistant United States
Attorneys, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Andrea Bloodworth appeals the 204-month sentence
imposed following his guilty plea to possession of a firearm by
a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 922(g)(1),
924(a)(2), (e) (West 2000 & Supp. 2010). On appeal, Bloodworth
argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to
dismiss the indictment, alleging that his due process rights
were violated because the Government acted in bad faith in
failing to preserve the audio recording of his traffic stop.
Finding no reversible error, we affirm.
On a motion to dismiss an indictment, we review the
district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal
conclusions de novo. See United States v. Woolfolk, 399 F.3d
590, 594 (4th Cir. 2005). The duty to preserve evidence arises
when the evidence “possess[es] an exculpatory value that was
apparent before the evidence was destroyed, and [is] of such a
nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable
evidence by other reasonably available means.” California v.
Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488-89 (1984). However, the failure to
preserve even potentially exculpatory evidence does not
automatically constitute a due process violation. It is only
when the “defendant can show bad faith on the part of the
police[] [that] failure to preserve potentially useful evidence”
amounts to the denial of due process. Arizona v. Youngblood,
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488 U.S. 51, 58 (1988). Bad faith “requires that the officer
have intentionally withheld the evidence for the purpose of
depriving the plaintiff of the use of that evidence during his
criminal trial.” Jean v. Collins, 221 F.3d 656, 663 (4th Cir.
2000).
Our review of the record leads us to conclude that
even if the recording of Defendant’s traffic stop was
potentially useful, the failure to preserve it was not motivated
by bad faith. Instead, the record reveals that the recording
was deleted automatically from the police department’s software
system, which purges older recordings when the system reaches
its maximum capacity. Accordingly, the district court did not
err in denying Bloodworth’s motion to dismiss the indictment.
We affirm the judgment of the district court. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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