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Hendricks v. State9/1/1999
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT
[No. 4107 - September 1, 1999]
Appeal from the District Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Herschel E. Crutchfield, Judge.
Martin Hendricks was stopped by the Fairbanks police for speeding. The officer who stopped Hendricks smelled alcoholic beverages on his breath. After Hendricks failed three sobriety tests, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, and he was later convicted of this crime following a jury trial in the Fairbanks district court.
The officer who stopped Hendricks tried to tape record their conversation, but the taping was unsuccessful: the first part of the tape was weak and garbled, while the remaining part appeared to be blank. Hendricks asked the trial Judge to instruct the jury that the police had failed in their "duty to collect and to preserve material evidence" and that the jury should therefore "presume that the evidence recorded by the police was favorable to [Hendricks]." The trial Judge refused to give this instruction, and Hendricks now contends that the Judge made the wrong decision.
We first note that, despite the wording of Hendricks's proposed jury instruction, this case does not involve a failure to "preserve" evidence. The police did not destroy, damage, throw away, or otherwise lose evidence in their possession. Rather, Hendricks's claim rests on the fact that the officer tried but failed to tape record his encounter with Hendricks. Hendricks argues that the officer acted improperly when he failed to "collect" (i.e., make) a tape recording of the traffic stop.
Hendricks relies on Stephan v. State for the proposition that the police are obliged to tape record all interrogations when feasible. But the Stephan rule applies only to custodial interrogations that occur "in a place of detention". We have repeatedly declined to extend the Stephan rule to other types of investigative interviews. See Suiter v. State , Swanson v. City & Borough of Juneau , Zaukar v. State , and Resecker v. State .
Hendricks's opening brief did not mention any of these cases, nor did Hendricks otherwise recognize that the Stephan rule does not apply to field interrogations. In his reply brief, Hendricks belatedly cites Resecker and acknowledges that the law is against him. He asks us to reverse course and declare that Stephan should apply to field interrogations conducted during traffic stops. But Hendricks has not provided any persuasive reason to abandon our prior decisions on this issue. We therefore reiterate that the Stephan rule does not apply to field interrogations.
Because the police officer who stopped Hendricks had no obligation to tape record their encounter, the officer's unsuccessful attempt to make a tape recording of the traffic stop did not give rise to any evidentiary presumption in Hendricks's favor. Thus, the trial Judge properly refused to give Hendricks's proposed jury instruction. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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