State v. Leatherwood

BURNETT, Judge.

We are asked to decide whether a criminal defendant was denied due process by police failure to preserve tape recordings of certain telephone conversations. The facts framing this issue began to unfold in a Boise restaurant. While a patron of the restaurant was eating dinner, his attention was drawn to a public telephone near his table. There he saw and heard another person call the police and say that a certain drug store would be robbed in forty-five minutes. The caller did not state his name. Shortly thereafter, the same person called the police twice more — saying that the…