Opinion ID: 2570583
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of the Palm Print

Text: ¶ 18 Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to preclude evidence of a palm print found in the small travel trailer where Robert Delahunt was murdered. ¶ 19 On February 4, 1998, the court ordered both the prosecution and defense to disclose to the other side any names of witnesses, addresses of witnesses, [and] statements or reports that have been written by such witnesses no later than two weeks before the trial date of March 2, 1998. On February 25, defense counsel interviewed Glenda Hardy, a print examiner for the Arizona Department of Public Safety. During the interview, Ms. Hardy referred to a bloody palm print that was taken from a shelf in the travel trailer where Delahunt was killed, which she identified as belonging to the defendant. ¶ 20 Defendant asked the trial court to exclude the palm print because the State had violated the discovery deadline. He asserted that Hardy's previous reports had referred only to latent prints (which he understood to mean invisible) and had never mentioned a bloody palm print. The late disclosure was unduly prejudicial, he argued, because [u]p to that point, there was no physical evidence linking Robert Poyson to those homicides. The court denied the motion on the ground that previous reports had disclosed the existence of latent prints. Perhaps [the State] didn't refer to [the palm print] with as much specificity as they could have, the court said, but I think the State has complied with the discovery requirements. For the same reason, the court also denied the defendant's motion to continue in order to have an expert analyze the palm print. ¶ 21 A trial court's erroneous decision to admit evidence not timely disclosed by the prosecution may, under some circumstances, be deemed harmless. See State v. Krone, 182 Ariz. 319, 321, 897 P.2d 621, 623 (1995). Error is harmless if the reviewing court can say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it did not contribute to or affect the verdict. See State v. Fulminante, 193 Ariz. 485, 500, 975 P.2d 75, 90 (1999); Krone, 182 Ariz. at 321, 897 P.2d at 623; State v. McVay, 127 Ariz. 450, 453, 622 P.2d 9, 12 (1980). This is a fact-specific inquiry; there is no bright-line method of determining whether a particular error is harmless. See State v. Bible, 175 Ariz. 549, 588, 858 P.2d 1152, 1191 (1993). ¶ 22 Assuming, arguendo, that the trial court should not have admitted the palm print, we nevertheless conclude that the error was harmless. During his interview with Detective Cooper, Poyson gave a tape-recorded statement in which he admitted his involvement in these murders. The jury heard the tape at trial. Along with this voluntary confession, the State presented physical evidence from the scene and testimony by the medical examiner, all of which confirmed that the murders occurred exactly as the defendant said they had. Given the weight of this evidence, a jury would almost certainly have returned a guilty verdict even without the palm print. Any error in admitting it or in denying the motion for a continuance was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., State v. Sharp, 193 Ariz. 414, 420, 973 P.2d 1171, 1177, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 120 S.Ct. 341, 145 L.Ed.2d 266 (1999) (admission of victim's broken and bloodied eyeglasses, which were found hidden under defendant's mattress, was harmless error in light of overwhelming evidence against defendant); State v. Spreitz, 190 Ariz. 129, 142, 945 P.2d 1260, 1273 (1997)(erroneous admission of gruesome autopsy photos was harmless due to the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, including, most importantly, his own uncoerced confession); Bible, 175 Ariz. at 588, 858 P.2d at 1191 (erroneous admission of DNA evidence was harmless where other evidence unequivocally pointed to defendant's guilt).