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People v. Bally11/12/1981
d 782, 784-785 [59 Cal. Rptr. 141, 427 P.2d 805].)
Here, a witness of the sending laboratory testified to a uniform custom and practice of sending such blood samples to other laboratories by first class mail without "return receipt requested," except "once or twice" when "requested by the people involved." (Bally had not made such a request.) A witness from the addressee laboratory testified to a police department practice of using regular first class mail only, while a blood specimen from another laboratory customarily "comes with a return receipt . . . ."
And, of course, the important affairs of our nation, governmental, commercial, and social, are conducted mainly through the use of ordinary first class mail. It is the basis of a long-existent rule that "A letter correctly addressed and properly mailed is presumed to have been received in the ordinary course of mail." (Evid. Code, § 641; St. Vincent's Inst. etc. v. Davis (1900) 129 Cal. 20, 24 [61 P. 477].)
Bally's insistent argument that "use of a return receipt in the present case would have conclusively established that the [sending laboratory] had mailed appellant's blood sample," seems to us to miss the point. Here the trial court found that the blood sample had been mailed, and Bally does not contend otherwise.
We are unable to conclude that police authorities, under the circumstances here before us, were as a matter of law guilty of negligence in
the use of ordinary first class mail in transmitting Bally's blood sample. Under the requirement of People v. Hitch and People v. Nation the law enforcement agencies took "reasonable measures to insure its adequate preservation." There was thus substantial evidence supportive of the trial court's determination of the single issue now before us.
Nevertheless, we opine that police and prosecuting authorities would be well advised, in transmitting important evidence such as that with which we are here concerned, to use the method best calculated to assure against its loss. Under other evidence, or broader judicial experience, a determination contrary to that of the instant ruling might reasonably be affirmed by a reviewing court.
The order granting probation is affirmed.
Disposition
The order granting probation is affirmed.
Judges Footnotes
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