Opinion ID: 2167211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: admission of tangible evidence (piece of concrete)

Text: Grundy argues that the trial court erred in allowing the Commonwealth to introduce into evidence, as Commonwealth's Exhibit 1, the fist-sized piece of concrete which the prosecution alleged that Grundy used to assault Marlow. The trial court held a hearing on Grundy's motion in limine to exclude the piece from evidence, and Marlow testified that he and Fitch had found the piece of concrete and that he had kept it in his possession continuously until trial. Grundy emphasizes that Marlow's testimony suggests that a non-testifying witness, Fitch, actually first discovered the piece of concrete and Grundy asserts this gap in the chain of custody, in combination with the non-traditional manner in which Marlow himself retained possession of the item prior to trial, rendered it inadmissible at trial. Additionally, Grundy argues that he suffered prejudice because the Commonwealth gave him inadequate notice of this evidence. After a review of the record, we find no error. Grundy's argument rests on a common misconception regarding the authentication of tangible evidence, and we must emphasize that a break in the chain of custody is not necessarily fatal to the admissibility of physical evidence. [1] KRE 901(a) governs the authentication and identification of evidence: The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims. [2] Under KRE 901, like its federal counterpart, a party seeking to introduce an item of tangible evidence need not satisfy an absolute identification requirement, and evidence is admissible if the offering party's evidence reasonably identifies the item. [3] We grant trial courts wide discretion over issues relating to the admissibility of tangible evidence because the foundation sufficient for admissibility will vary based on the nature of the item: If the offered item possesses characteristics which are fairly unique and readily identifiable and if the substance of which the item is composed is relatively impervious to change, the trial court is viewed as having broad discretion to admit merely on the basis of testimony that the item is the one in question and is in a substantially unchanged condition. On the other hand, if the offered evidence is of such a nature as not to be readily identifiable, or to be susceptible to alteration by tampering or contamination, sound exercise of the trial court's discretion may require a substantially more elaborate foundation. A foundation of the latter sort will commonly entail testimonially tracing the chain of custody of the item with sufficient completeness to render it improbable that the original item has either been exchanged with another or been contaminated or tampered with. [4] Here, the tangible evidence consisted of a piece of concrete, an item virtually synonymous with impervious to change, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Marlow's testimony properly identified Commonwealth's Exhibit 1 as the piece of concrete found in his hotel room after the assault. Although the Commonwealth could have sought to introduce Fitch's testimony to further identify the item, we find that the trial court properly held that Marlow's testimony appropriately identified the item. Likewise, we find no merit in Grundy's claim that he received inadequate notice of this evidence. We note that Grundy does not allege that the Marion County Commonwealth's Attorney violated any discovery order entered by the Court or any of the discovery provisions of the Kentucky Rules of Criminal Procedure. Instead, Grundy asks this Court to impute Officer Waters's actions to the Commonwealth and to reverse the convictions because Grundy did not receive all of the information necessary to prepare his defense. However, Grundy's argument stops short of alleging any intentional wrongdoing on the part of Officer Waters, and merely suggests fault by emphasizing the deviation from traditional police procedure and repeating the innuendo-laden claim that Officer Waters knew of the existence of the piece of concrete within a day or so of its discovery. Grundy cites to authority from this Court, Ballard v. Commonwealth [5] and Anderson v. Commonwealth, [6] but makes no allegation that the facts in this case are comparable to those in the precedent he cites. Here, Officer Waters testified before the grand jury that Marlow had identified a piece of concrete as the object Grundy used to injure him, and the Commonwealth provided Grundy with a transcript of these proceedings several months before trial. In addition, the Commonwealth specifically notified Grundy's counsel of its intention to introduce the piece of concrete into evidence two weeks before trial, and Grundy's counsel indicated during the hearing on her motion in limine that she did not intend to make any allegation of prosecutorial misconduct and agreed that the prosecution properly notified her of the existence of this evidence as soon as the prosecution itself became aware of it. Grundy's counsel filed a motion in limine with respect to this evidence five days before the trial began, and thus had an opportunity to prepare for and address the admissibility issue. Grundy made no request that the trial court continue the trial to give him an opportunity to reformulate defense strategy, secure testing of the item, or seek other relief. All of these facts lead us to conclude that Grundy received adequate notice that the Commonwealth intended to introduce Commonwealth's Exhibit 1 as the dangerous instrument Grundy used to assault Marlow. We fail to see how Grundy's argument states a claim for our review, as Officer Waters's testimony before the grand jury belies any contention that he attempted to sandbag Grundy with the physical evidence. We find no error in the trial court's ruling allowing the Commonwealth to introduce the piece of concrete into evidence.