Opinion ID: 2078428
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Mug Book

Text: The exhibit in question is a book containing photographs from which the victim identified her assailant. The book was admitted in its entirety, and the photographs were displayed only to the witnesses. The jury saw the book only as it was carried to and from the witness stand. This court has traditionally disapproved the use of mug shots out of fear that jurors may infer a criminal history from these photographs. Richey v. State (1981), Ind., 426 N.E.2d 389, 394. Such an inference of illegal conduct could deprive a defendant of the cloak of innocence to which he is entitled during the trial of the instant charge. This rationale extends to other procedural and evidentiary safeguards: the inadmissibility of evidence of prior convictions, the bifurcation of habitual criminal offender proceedings, and the disapproval of the appearance of the accused in shackles or jail clothing. Such protections are not absolute, however, and a mug book is not a talisman in the presence of which all claims of fairness dissolve. Mug shots are not per se inadmissible and will be allowed if 1) they are not unduly prejudicial, and 2) they have substantial independent probative value. Hovis v. State (1983), Ind., 455 N.E.2d 577, 585. Mug shots are not unduly prejudicial if the State has made efforts to disguise the nature of the photographs. Ashley v. State (1986), Ind., 493 N.E.2d 768. In allowing such conditional admissibility, we acknowledge that prejudice to the defendant may not be entirely eliminated, but such prejudice must be balanced with the State's interest in identifying, apprehending, and convicting the perpetrators of crime. In furtherance of this state interest, law enforcement officers maintain collections of photographs from which victims and witnesses may identify perpetrators of crime. No juror reasonably well-versed in television police drama would mistake these photographs for pictures taken from high school year books. However, when a perpetrator is identified from such a collection, the photographs become probative, relevant evidence at trial. American courts are therefore faced with evidence which is at once inherently prejudicial and potentially important to the search for truth. We resolve the incongruity by requiring the State to make every effort to disguise the mug shot by redacting any criminal information, law enforcement insignia, or other information which blatantly identifies the photograph with the criminal justice system. The slight prejudice which remains is outweighed by the necessity for effective identification of perpetrators by eyewitnesses. In this case, the State made no effort to disguise the mug shots contained in this exhibit. However, Graves was not prejudiced because the jurors never saw the photographs. The appearance of the book itself, like the appearance of the most carefully altered mug shot, may contain slight prejudice. Any such prejudice is outweighed, however, by the probative value of this evidence. The book is a graphic illustration of the procedure by which the victim identified the defendant. Graves challenged this identification, arguing that his accomplice was the actual attacker. This evidence showed that the victim unerringly chose defendant's photograph from numerous photographs as the individual who took her purse and pushed her to the ground.