Title: Groves v. State
Citation: 456 N.E.2d 720
Docket Number: 1182S439
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: December 13, 1983

456 N.E.2d 720 (1983)
Mona Lisa GROVES, Appellant (Defendant below),
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).
No. 1182S439.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
December 13, 1983.
David M. Shaw, Evansville, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Latriealle Wheat, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
PRENTICE, Justice.
Defendant (Appellant) was convicted, after a trial by jury, of forgery, Ind. Code § 35-43-5-2 (Burns 1979), and of being an habitual offender, Ind. Code § 35-50-2-8 (Burns Supp. 1983), and was sentenced to thirty-five (35) years imprisonment. This direct appeal presents five issues for review, one of which compels us to reverse the judgment of the trial court and to order a new trial.
On February 28, 1981 Robin Rickard was socializing with several friends, including the Defendant, at a bar in Evansville, Indiana. Late in the evening, Ms. Rickard's billfold was discovered by a friend on the floor and was returned to her. Her purse had also been moved from where she had previously placed it on the floor next to her seat. Ms. Rickard later discovered that her driver's license and checkbook were missing from her billfold. Two days later, on March 2nd, a woman identifying herself as Robin Rickard, and possessing a driver's license issued in that name, cashed one of Ms. Rickard's checks at Wesselman's grocery store in Evansville. The woman who presented the check was not Robin Rickard, nor was the handwriting on the check or the signature thereon that of Robin Rickard. Other checks drawn upon the account of Robin Rickard had also been cashed, or an attempt had been made to cash them, at two other area stores on March 1st and 2nd, by a person who generally matched Defendant's appearance, and who possessed a driver's license issued in the name of Robin Rickard.
The clerk who had cashed the check at Wesselman's had also taken a regiscope photograph of the transaction. A regiscope is a camera with two lenses. If working properly, it takes two photographs simultaneously on one strip of film. The negative images, one of the check being negotiated and the other of the person tendering it, are *721 recorded adjacent to each other, one above the other, on a strip of film upon which other such transactions are also recorded. If desired, positive prints of questioned transactions are made from the film strip.
The Defendant assigns error to the trial court's ruling admitting the regiscope photographs into evidence. She argues that a sufficient foundation had not been laid for its admission, in that there was no evidence that the photograph had been properly developed and printed, or that it had not been altered and that no witness had identified it as depicting the Defendant while she was in the act of cashing the forged check.
Photographs are usually admissible or not, depending upon whether a foundational requirement has been met evidencing that it fairly represents that which it purports to depict. They are not, under such circumstances, however, received as substantive evidence but are merely demonstrative, i.e. visual aids that assist in the presentation and interpretation of testimony. Here, however, it is readily discerned that the photograph was admitted as substantive evidence of the criminal transaction. That is, standing alone, it is evidence of guilt. Such evidence has become acceptable upon a basis that has become known as the "silent witness" theory. Because of the great weight of such evidence, it is obvious that it should be admitted only with great caution.
In Bergner v. State, (1979) Ind. App., 397 N.E.2d 1012, Judge Chipman authored an excellent opinion setting forth our rules respecting photographic evidence, as they existed at that time. He adopted the "silent witness" rule in admitting a photograph of the criminal episode of sodomy and held that no witness was required to testify that the photograph was an accurate representation, because it spoke for itself. We quoted extensively and with approval from that opinion in Torres v. State, (1982) Ind., 442 N.E.2d 1021, 1024-25.
Because of problems present in the case at bar not present in Torres, it is appropriate that we look further to the Bergner opinion.
Bergner, 397 N.E.2d  at 1017-18.
Although the photograph admitted portrayed a person whose general description resembled that of the Defendant, it was of very poor quality and identification of the Defendant therefrom would have been difficult. However, Officer Bagbey, who investigated the crime was erroneously permitted to testify, over Defendant's objection, that he was acquainted with the Defendant and that, in his opinion she was the person portrayed in the photograph. It was upon this basis, that the photograph was admitted. Whether or not the photograph was a fair representation was not the point in issue at that time, although that is the test for admitting photographs for demonstrative *723 purposes. In order for the photograph to qualify for admission as substantive evidence, its probative integrity had to be first established. It should be clear that if a photograph is admissible as substantive evidence because "it speaks for itself," a witness' opinion as to what it is saying not only does not address itself to evidentiary competence but invades the province of the jury.
The State did not meet the foundational requirement or the guidelines of Bergner, as hereinbefore set forth. No evidence was submitted with respect to the processing of the film, and there were missing links in the chain of custody evidence. Therefore, the possibility of significant error or artifice was not eliminated. Whether or not the photograph portrayed the Defendant was a matter of credibility and weight, but before the evidence became competent, it had to be established, to a relative certainty, that the person portrayed in the photograph was, indeed, the one who negotiated the check. We are of the opinion that the requirement set forth in Bergner that the proponent of the evidence first prove that it has not been altered in any significant respect is sound and was not met in this case. Accordingly, the photograph should not have been admitted.
Error in the admission of evidence will not be reversible, unless the defendant can demonstrate some significant harm resulting therefrom. Short v. State, (1982) Ind., 443 N.E.2d 298, 308; Williams v. State, (1981) Ind., 426 N.E.2d 662, 671. We, therefore, look both to the other evidence and to the likely force of the erroneously admitted evidence to determine the potential for harm. The Defendant's burden is not to demonstrate that, but for the error, the verdict would have been different. Rather, harm is shown "when it is made, by all the circumstances, to appear that the error placed him in a position of grave peril to which he should not have been subjected." White v. State, (1971) 257 Ind. 64, 77-8, 272 N.E.2d 312, 320.
The circumstantial evidence against Defendant was damning and arguably sufficient, standing alone. It was by no means, however, overwhelming. The clerk who had accepted the check and taken the regiscope photograph had no independent recollection of her. Neither was she identified as the one who had tendered the other checks drawn upon Robin Rickard's account.
The photographs, admitted without the foundational requirements of Bergner, combined with the improperly admitted opinion testimony of Officer Bagby to cinch Defendant's conviction. If the jury accepted the authenticity of the photographs and the identification by Officer Bagby the circumstantial evidence was of no significance. We cannot permit a conviction to stand where the relative weight of the properly admitted evidence and the improperly admitted evidence is so disparate.
In view of our decision herein, we do not address other issues presented.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed. The cause is remanded with instructions to grant a new trial.
GIVAN, C.J., and HUNTER and PIVARNIK, JJ., concur.
DeBRULER, J., dissents.