Opinion ID: 2220114
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Admission of Tangible Evidence

Text: Cook contends that the trial court erred when it admitted State's Exhibits 15-20, 22-24, and 30. The exhibits in question include several boards containing bullet holes removed from the south wall and front of Marion's Hideaway Bar, a poster containing a bullet hole removed from the south wall of the bar, and photos of those items. Part of the evidence was obtained on January 8, 1987, a month and a half after the shooting, and the rest on June 16, 1987, seven months after the shooting. Cook's grounds for objection at trial was lack of a proper foundation connecting the bullet holes in the boards and poster to the shooting that occurred on November 22, 1986. He now claims that the admission of the evidence was also highly prejudicial. Even if a proper foundation was not laid for the admission of the exhibits, they are essentially immaterial to the issue of Cook's guilt. In the face of testimony by witnesses who saw Jaronik open the door and fall back dead from a gun shot wound and by witnesses who saw and spoke with Cook before and after the shooting, exhibits 15-20, 22-24, and 30 were probably peripheral to the jury's judgment. Admission of the exhibits was not error requiring reversal.