A police officer in Manchester, New Hampshire, referred to here as John Doe, was arrested and charged with DWI in 2020 while off duty in New York. He resigned two weeks later, and the City notified the Attorney General’s Office that Doe should be placed on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule (EES). Doe pled guilty to the DWI charge, but subsequently filed suit to have his name removed from the EES. The lower court accepted Doe’s argument that his conviction did not “constitute potentially exculpatory evidence for purposes of the EES” and that the plaintiff’s name “must be removed from the schedule.” The defendants appealed.
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire affirmed. New Hampshire law provides that the New Hampshire Department of Justice may voluntarily maintain an EES which “shall consist of a list of all current or former law enforcement officers whose personnel information contain potentially exculpatory evidence.”
The Attorney General’s Office declined to argue that Doe’s DWI was firmly within the meaning of “exculpatory evidence,” instead contending that while it “will not need to be disclosed to the defense in many or even most cases it is possible that the plaintiff’s DWI conviction may need to be disclosed in a future case, the conviction itself is ‘potentially exculpatory’ and the plaintiff’s placement on the EES is proper.”
The Supreme Court adopted the reasoning of the lower court, which found that it was “hard pressed to envision a circumstance under which Plaintiff’s DWI conviction could be relevant or admissible at any trial while a DWI generally reflects poor judgment in the moment on Doe’s part, it bears no relation to the performance of his duties as a police officer let alone his credibility, and bears no potential relevance to a defendant’s guilt, nor would it serve as a basis to impeach the officer’s credibility.”
Doe v. City of Manchester, No. 2022-0448 (N.H. 2024).