Opinion ID: 1093438
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The admission of the pistol

Text: The second error alleged concerns the admission into evidence of a .22 calibre pistol (S-6). This was introduced in addition to another .22 calibre pistol (S-4), used to kill the victim. The defendant contends that the admission of S-6 (the pistol not used in the shooting) was prejudicial and irrelevant. The evidence shows that the victim, Mrs. Thompson, was shot in the course of an attempted armed robbery of her shop. During the robbery, Mrs. Thompson reached for a gun. The robber then shot her. The pistol S-6 was found on the floor. (S-4, the killing weapon, was recovered later, when a suspect was arrested.) Ballistic tests proved that S-4 fired the fatal shot and that S-6 did not. The objection that the pistol S-6 was irrelevant possesses no merit. Among other reasons, the evidence that this pistol, found at the scene of the shooting, was not the death weapon tends to strengthen the other proof that the other weapon (S-4), connected with the defendant, was the weapon used to kill the victim.