Appreciate the information. I enjoyed the quick law lesson. I'm curious about the process that would go into this decision:

The court can, for example, rightfully decide the bones were never potentially exculpatory evidence, and were not required to be retained by the evidence preservation statute.

I see that in the linked post you pointed out that while the appeals court does not "weigh" evidence, it "does look at evidence, to the extent necessary to decide the legal issues."

Looking at statute 968.205, it seems like this bolded part could be the type of legal issue that would require the appeals court to look at evidence in order to make a ruling:

"...and the biological material is from a victim of the offense that was the subject of the criminal investigation or may reasonably be used to incriminate or exculpate any person for the offense..."

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I don't recall Judge AS addressing the bones' exculpatory value in her decision. Pardon me if I'm going way off the reservation here, but from what I gather reading your post, the appeals court could address this legal issue if it so chooses, even if Judge AS did not? If so, how would the court determine what meets the standard of "reasonable"?