In this Durham County case, defendant made a post-conviction motion arguing the unlawful destruction of evidence from his case justified dismissing his conviction for robbery with a firearm. The Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming the trial court’s denial of his motion.

After defendant’s conviction for robbery with a firearm in 2014, the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence investigated his case and requested evidence, including fingerprints from the crime scene, from the Durham Police Department and Durham County Clerk of Superior Court. The clerk’s office responded that the evidence had been destroyed, leading defendant to file a motion for hearing regarding destruction of evidence in violation of G.S. 15A-268. In March of 2022, the trial court determined that the clerk’s office destroyed evidence that should have been preserved during defendant’s incarceration, ordering a hearing on the matter. In June of 2022, the matter came for hearing before a different trial judge than the one who initially ordered the hearing, resulting in an order denying defendant’s motion.

On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred by (1) failing to include findings of fact or conclusion of law in the order, and (2) failing to consider his due process argument. Taking up (1), the Court of Appeals disagreed that the lack of findings precluded meaningful review, noting G.S. 15A-268 “does not expressly require that the trial court make specific findings of fact or conclusions of law.” Slip Op. at 4. Because the statute did not require specific findings of fact and conclusions of law, the court declined to require those of the order in this case.

Moving to (2), the court explained that defendant’s argument presumed the trial judge issuing the order was doing so based on the State’s arguments at the hearing, finding that “[G.S.] 15A-268 did not require preservation of the evidence destroyed by the Durham Clerk’s Office.” Id. at 5. The court did not agree with this interpretation, explaining that assumption would mean the trial judge issuing the order was overruling the trial judge who ordered the hearing on the matter. Instead, the court concluded that the trial judge’s order “found that Defendant’s due process rights were not violated by the evidence destruction and, accordingly, that Defendant’s requested remedy was not required.” Id. at 6. The court went on to discuss the burden on a defendant arguing under G.S. 15A-268, applying the reasoning from State v. Lewis, 365 N.C. 488 (2012), to conclude that “the same burden (i.e., showing bad faith by the State) applies for showing a due process violation based on the destruction of evidence after trial or after a defendant’s conviction.” Slip Op. at 7.