Opinion ID: 2600070
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of photograph depicting victim's injuries

Text: As part of the case in aggravation, the prosecutor presented a color photograph of the victim's genital area, groin and thighs that Nurse Kinsey, the SART nurse, took at the outset of her examination in the hospital, approximately three hours after the sexual assaults occurred. The photograph showed blood on the victim's genital area and upper thighs. Defendant contends the trial court erred by not excluding the photograph as inflammatory, prejudicial, cumulative, and irrelevant. He argues the trial court violated Evidence Code section 352 (section 352) and constitutional principles by failing to weigh the photograph's relevance against its prejudicial effects and by admitting it. We find no error. The challenged photograph's admissibility was the subject of several motions and hearings. Before the start of the guilt phase, the trial court denied a defense motion under section 352 to exclude the photograph as inflammatory and irrelevant. The trial court did not disagree that the photograph was distasteful, but found it relevant to establishing a link between the evidence of blood found at the crime scene and the evidence that the victim was sexually assaulted. The trial court revisited the photograph's admissibility before the penalty retrial, during a hearing on defense counsel's written exclusion motion. At the hearing, defense counsel argued that because the photograph was taken in the hospital more than three hours after the sexual assaults occurred, it did not accurately depict the injuries defendant inflicted and was not relevant under section 190.3, factor (a) as a circumstance of the crime. As defense counsel pointed out, the emergency room physician who saw the victim nearer in time to the crimes observed only a small amount of vaginal bleeding. Counsel posited that the reddish substance the photograph showed may have been the microbicidal Betadine or some other antiseptic agent. The trial court again denied the motion to exclude the photograph, repeating its prior finding that the photograph was probative and material to the evidence showing a lot of bleeding at the scene. In the course of its ruling, the trial court criticized the defense for offering no evidentiary support for its assertion that the stains on the victim's thighs were not blood, and cautioned counsel against arguing in the dark at trial. The challenged photograph was once again the subject of discussion during a break in the prosecution's case in aggravation, when the prosecutor sought to substitute the original Polaroid photograph for the enlarged copy she had presented at the guilt phase. Without abandoning his earlier objection to the evidence, defense counsel agreed that the smaller photograph was more accurate but asked that the trial court admit it during the testimony of the SART nurse. The trial court ruled it would admit the Polaroid photograph and allow the prosecutor to use the evidence as she pleased. The prosecutor introduced the photograph during the testimony of the cardiology expert, Dr. Diggs, who answered in the affirmative when the prosecutor asked whether the photograph depicted the victim's condition before any hospital intervention. But Dr. Diggs also indicated he saw only a small amount of blood coming from the victim's vagina. By contrast, Nurse Kinsey testified that, as the photograph showed, the victim's external vaginal area extending down to her thighs was grossly bloodied. (30) As a general rule, a trial court has broad discretion to determine the admissibility of a photograph challenged as unduly gruesome or inflammatory, and we will not disturb its determination on appeal unless the photograph's prejudicial effect clearly outweighs its probative value. ( People v. Martinez (2003) 31 Cal.4th 673, 692 [3 Cal.Rptr.3d 648, 74 P.3d 748].) However, a trial court's discretion to exclude as unduly prejudicial evidence bearing on the circumstances of the crime is more limited ( People v. Salcido (2008) 44 Cal.4th 93, 158 [79 Cal.Rptr.3d 54, 186 P.3d 437]; see People v. Bonilla, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 353), because at the penalty phase the prosecution is entitled to place the capital offense and the offender in a morally bad light ( People v. Box (2000) 23 Cal.4th 1153, 1201 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 69, 5 P.3d 130]; see People v. Bonilla, supra, at p. 353). In light of these principles, and having examined the disputed photograph, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's ruling admitting the photograph of the victim's injuries at the penalty phase retrial. We disagree with defendant's contention that the challenged photograph had no probative value on the only issue before the penalty retrial jury, i.e., whether defendant should be sentenced to life without parole or death. The photograph was relevant to show the circumstances of the crime (§ 190.3, factor (a); People v. Sully (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1195, 1241 [283 Cal.Rptr. 144, 812 P.2d 163]); as the trial court reasonably determined, it provided an evidentiary link between the blood stained carpet underneath the victim at the scene and the sexual assaults defendant committed. Furthermore, the photograph aided Nurse Kinsey in her testimony to the jury about the extent of the victim's injuries from the sexual assaults. ( People v. Lewis (2009) 46 Cal.4th 1255, 1282 [96 Cal.Rptr.3d 512, 210 P.3d 1119] [the prosecution is not obliged to prove its case solely with live witnesses].) It is true that the prosecution's witnesses apparently disagreed over the amount of blood that appeared on and around the victim's vaginal area after her admission to the hospital. But that discrepancy went to the photograph's evidentiary weight, not its relevance. ( People v. Sully, supra, at p. 1242.) Nor, contrary to defendant's assertion, did the photograph's prejudicial effects outweigh its probative value. We have reviewed the photograph and conclude that although disturbing, it is neither unduly gruesome nor inflammatory and not of such a nature as to overcome the jury's rationality. [22] ( People v. Whisenhunt, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 212.) We also reject as unsupported by the record defendant's further assertion that the trial court failed to weigh the evidence's probative value against its prejudicial effects, as Evidence Code section 352 requires. [A] court need not expressly weigh prejudice against probative value or even expressly state that it has done so, if the record as a whole shows the court was aware of and performed its balancing functions under Evidence Code section 352. ( People v. Taylor (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1155, 1169 [113 Cal.Rptr.2d 827, 34 P.3d 937].) Here, the parties had previously litigated the photograph's admissibility at the guilt phase of trial, with extensive argument on its prejudicial effects and probative value. In ruling that the evidence was admissible in the prosecutor's case-in-chief, the trial court determined that the photograph's distastefulness did not outweigh its relevance as a link between the crime scene evidence and the sexual assaults defendant committed. Although defense counsel advanced a different argument for excluding the photograph at the penalty phase, this time challenging its admission on relevance grounds, we can infer from the denial of that motion that the trial court remained of the view, expressed in its prior ruling, that the photograph's prejudicial effects did not substantially outweigh its probative value. Viewed as a whole, the record amply demonstrates that the trial court conducted the proper inquiry. [23] (31) Regarding defendant's claim that the photograph's admission violated his various rights under the federal and state Constitutions, as defendant properly acknowledges,  `[t]he routine application of state evidentiary law does not implicate [a] defendant's constitutional rights. [Citation.]' ( People v. Lewis, supra, 46 Cal.4th at p. 1284.)