State v. Samander S. Dabas (069498)

Defendant Samander Dabas was convicted of the murder of his wife based largely on statements he made to prosecutor’s investigators in the early morning hours of August 25, 2004. An investigator’s purposeful destruction of his notes taken during two hours of Dabas’s interrogation is at the heart of the appeal before us.

After Dabas’s arrest, Investigator John Dando of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office conducted a two-hour “pre-interview” during which he asked Dabas open-ended questions and recorded, in handwritten notes, Dabas’s answers. Then, Investigator Dan-do—using his interview…