Keshaun D. Earley, aka Keshawn Earley, aka Keshawn Early, aka Buddha Earley v. New Jersey

In Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988), and Illinois v. Fisher, 540 U.S. 544 (2004), this Court held that the police violate a defendant’s due process rights when they destroy potentially exculpatory evidence in bad faith. This Court, though, did not define what constitutes “bad faith” under this standard. Since Youngblood and Fisher, state courts and federal circuit courts have divided on what a defendant must prove to satisfy the bad faith standard, with some requiring malicious intent, others requiring only knowledge of the evidence’s potential exculpatory value, and still others requiring recklessness, gross negligence, or other severe misconduct. The question presented is: Whether the police acted in bad faith and thus violated Petitioner’s due process rights where the trial court found that (1) the police knowingly destroyed potentially exculpatory evidence as part of a pattern of “cavalier” disregard for the State’s obligation to preserve such evidence, and (2) the absence of the destroyed evidence was prejudicial to Petitioner’s ability to present his alibi?