Opinion ID: 1382950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: crime route video.

Text: Detective Lane introduced a videotape purporting to show the routes and distances supposedly traveled by Appellant and his mother on the night in question and the approximate times it took to travel those distances. The Commonwealth's theory was that Appellant and Reid first traveled from the Nix/Ramsey residence south on highway 1804 to the Davenport residence where Appellant robbed the Davenports, then from the Davenport residence south on 1804 to its merger with highway 25, then south on highway 25 to Jellico, then up Kentucky Hill to Mildred McLemore's residence; that Appellant then drove down Kentucky Hill to Ray's market on highway 25 where he met his mother; that Appellant and his mother proceeded back to highway 1804 and north to the Davenport residence where they set the fatal fire, then continued north on 1804 to Burke Hollow Road where they turned right and proceeded to their own residence. Appellant agrees this was the route he traveled that night, but disagrees that he ever stopped at the Davenport residence. Detective Lane used a video camera mounted inside his police cruiser to videotape the routes while he drove from point to point at a speed of forty miles per hour, marking the travel times with a stopwatch. However, he did not videotape the so-called crime route in the sequence in which it occurred. The videotape starts at the Davenport residence, then proceeds north on 1804 to Burke Hollow Road, then to the Osborne residence. Lane testified that the travel time from the Davenport residence to the Osborne residence was one minute and fifty-three seconds. The next scene on the videotape is the Nix/Ramsey residence, but there is no depiction of any route to or from that location. The videotape then switches to the McLemore residence on Kentucky Hill, from where it proceeds to Ray's market on highway 25, then to highway 1804 and back to the Davenport residence. Detective Lane testified that the travel time from the McLemore residence to the Davenport residence was two minutes. Appellant asserts three errors with respect to the admission of the crime route video: (1) the video was made during daylight hours whereas the actual events occurred at night; (2) there was no evidence as to how fast Appellant was driving the motorcycle on the night in question; and (3) the transposition of the Nix/Ramsey residence from the Osborne residence on the videotape created an inference that they are located next to each other when, in fact, they are several miles apart. Presumably, the purpose of the crime scene video was to demonstrate the relatively short distances and travel times between locations crucial to this case in order to prove that it was possible for Appellant and his mother to drive from Ray's market to the Davenport residence, set the fire, and arrive at their own residence by 1:18 a.m., when Patricia Osborne made her 911 call. Thus, it is of no consequence that the video was made during daylight rather than at night, or that the motorcycle may have been going faster or slower than Lane's police cruiser. Similar to the posed photograph described in Gorman v. Hunt, Ky., 19 S.W.3d 662 (2000), the crime scene video simply demonstrated the plausibility of the Commonwealth's theory of the case. While the transposition to the Nix/Ramsey residence from the Osborne residence may have been confusing, Lane clarified on cross-examination that they were not located near each other and that the Nix/Ramsey residence was located further north on highway 1804. Though it may have been preferable to have deleted the portrayal of the Nix/Ramsey residence from the videotape, that request was not made at trial. We conclude that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting the crime scene video into evidence. Id. at 669.