Arizona P2P case Atlantic v. Howell reached is conclusion last week (PDF), with a judge siding in favor of the RIAA after defendant Jeffrey Howell was found to have “willfully and intentionally destroyed evidence” essential to the case.

Arizona District Judge Neil V. Wake found Howell liable for $40,500 in statutory damages plus $350 in court costs, in addition to an order requiring him to destroy any copyright-infringing materials in his possession.

The case, which was closely watched by all sides over Wake’s interpretation of “making available” – as in, making music available for download by others instead of actually transferring any – helped trigger a massive shift in precedent away from the RIAA’s favor.

Indeed, Minnesota defendant Jammie Thomas has a chance at retrial for the $222,000 judgment entered against her, thanks to some of the findings in Atlantic v. Howell.

It is unclear what ripple effect Atlantic v. Howell will have in other cases examining the “making available” issue.

In his case, Howell said he never placed any music in his P2P client’s shared music folder, and that the music on his computer came from ripped CDs. He did, however, admit to installing the KaZaA P2P client.

The RIAA accused Howell of downloading 54 copyrighted songs in 2006. Later discovery found that he uninstalled KaZaA and formatted his hard drive, destroying evidence on at least four different occasions.

“Howell has repeatedly destroyed evidence central to the factual allegations in this case. He admits that he removed the KaZaA program from his computer and deleted the contents of the shared folder shortly after receiving notice of this lawsuit,” reads Wake’s order. “Although he testified that he created DVDs to backup his shared folder before he removed, the DVDs he produced in discovery are inaccurate and unworthy of belief. The DVDs he created are not true backups because … they do not accurately represent the contents of his shared folder at that time.”

“The recording companies’ forensic examination also shows that Howell reinstalled his computer’s operating system on January 2, 2007, a few weeks after he had received their requests for copies of various files on his computer. Howell also downloaded a program called Aevita Wipe & Delete in November, 2006 shortly after he filed his answer in this suit.2 Then, in the middle of the discovery period, he used that program to permanently delete all traces of certain files on his computer.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Fred von Lohmann attributed part of Howell’s defeat to his lack of representation – he did not retain a lawyer for the case, although the EFF provided some assistance – noting that “he clearly wasn’t able to adequately articulate his side of the story.”

“He never had an adequate opportunity to explain what happened on his PC, said Lohmann in an interview with Ars Tecnica. “While the RIAA had forensics experts and lawyers to tell the story.... I think if Howell had an expert and lawyer to speak for him, he would have told a different story.”