In the 1988 case of Arizona v. Youngblood, Larry Youngblood was convicted for child molestation and kidnapping in an Arizona state court. The conviction was based on victim identification and a serological analysis of the semen found at the crime scene. However, some potentially exculpatory evidence (the victim's clothing) had not been properly preserved by law enforcement officials which could have allowed further testing that might have proved Youngblood's innocence or guilt definitively. On appeal to the Supreme Court, it was argued that this failure violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment because he couldn't fully defend himself without this evidence. The Supreme Court ruled against him in a 5-4 decision stating that unless law enforcement acted in bad faith by failing to preserve potentially useful evidence, there is no violation of due process rights even if such preservation might be expected as part of good police practices. This ruling established "bad faith" as a necessary condition for establishing violations related to loss or destruction of potential evidentiary material.

In the dissenting opinion for Arizona v. Youngblood, Justice Brennan argued that the majority's decision failed to adequately protect a defendant's right to due process. He contended that when law enforcement fails to preserve potentially exculpatory evidence, it should be presumed that such evidence would have been favorable to the accused. This presumption is necessary because once this type of evidence is lost or destroyed, there’s no way for a court to determine its potential impact on the outcome of a trial. Therefore, according to Justice Brennan, any failure by law enforcement officials in preserving such material violates constitutional rights and automatically necessitates reversal of conviction without requiring proof from defendants about bad faith on part of police or how they could use this lost/destroyed evidence in their defense strategy.