Opinion ID: 166006
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trial court proceedings and description of the videos

Text: 6 Mr. Harris and the government disagreed at trial about Mr. Pearce's position in the truck and the location of Mr. Harris's gun when the shots were fired. According to the state, Mr. Pearce was asleep when Mr. Harris shot him from outside the vehicle. Expert witnesses testified for the state about the trajectory of the fired bullets and the relative positions of Mr. Harris and Mr. Pearce during the shooting. One of the state's witnesses was Tom Bevel, a forensic consultant who helped county and state investigators to examine and interpret the crime scene evidence. He concluded that, when the shots were fired, Mr. Pearce would have been sitting in the passenger's seat with it scooted as far back as you could, and then with the backrest reclined in the furtherest [sic] position that it can be. Rec. vol. V, at 924. Mr. Bevel believed that Mr. Pearce was not in an aggressive position when he was struck by any of the four shots because the bullet strikes would be in a different location than where they are had Mr. Pearce been in an attacking mode. Id. at 916. 7 Central to our inquiry are two videos introduced during Mr. Bevel's testimony. The videos illustrated the state's theory that Mr. Pearce was asleep when he was shot and also attempted to disprove a theory that Harris was being attacked or that he was driving while he fired the gun. Harris, 13 P.3d at 492. During the first reenactment video, Mr. Bevel explained how video scenes illustrated possible positions, inferred from evidence at the crime scene, of Mr. Harris and Mr. Pearce at the time of the shooting. The first video was produced with two human models; it lasted 3 minutes and 8 seconds and contained no sound. The district court described the scenes as follows: 8 Scene One: This scene depicts the measurement of the distance from the right side of the passenger seat back to the lower rear area of the passenger door. 9 Scene Two: This scene depicts the measurement of the distance from the gun to the torso. The driver is not in the driver's seat. The shooter is shown reaching in from the side of the vehicle to shoot. The viewpoint is from the right side of the vehicle, viewing across the vehicle toward the left side of the vehicle. 10 Scene Three: This is a close up scene showing the passenger's lower right torso in close proximity to the intersection of the vertical (back) and horizontal (seat) components of the passenger's seat. 11 Scene Four: This is the same as scene two, viewed from just off the center line, looking rearward. The shooter is shown to be reaching in from the left side of the vehicle. 12 Scene Five: This is an illustration of the bullet trajectory, from the gun to the passenger's neck. The viewpoint is on the centerline, looking rearward. The shooter is shown to be reaching in from the left window. The gun is positioned approximately on the centerline of the vehicle. 13 Scene Six: This is a[n] illustration of the position of the gun and the driver, with the driver sitting in the seat, shooting with the gun in his right hand, turning his upper body to shoot. (Defendant's theory.) The viewpoint is from the right side. The bullet entry point is shown to be in mid-torso, on the left side of the passenger, at point blank range. 14 Scene Seven: This scene is identical to scene six, except that the view is from the right front of the vehicle, looking toward the vehicle centerline. 15 Scene Eight: This scene is a close up of a point blank gunshot to the left neck of the passenger, viewed from directly in front of the passenger. The field of view then widens to show the shooter sitting in the left seat, wielding the gun with an outstretched right arm. (Defendant's theory.) Scene Nine: This scene is a depiction of a measurement from the gun to the middle region of the left side of the passenger's torso. The view is from the right side of the vehicle. The view then moves down to show the location of the exit wound in the lower right area of the passenger's torso. The view then moves up and in, to show the passenger's neck. 16 Scene Ten: This is a slow motion depiction of a thrust with a knife. The knife is in the passenger's left hand; the thrust is toward the driver's right thigh. (Defendant's theory.) Scene Eleven: This is substantially identical to scene ten, except that the view is from the right side of the vehicle. The exit wounds in the lower right area of the passenger's torso are also illustrated. 17 Scene Twelve: This scene is an illustration, from the right side of the vehicle, of the driver reaching forward and down for a gun, then turning in the seat to shoot the passenger at point blank range with the gun in his right hand. 18 Scene Thirteen: This is an illustration, also from the right side of the vehicle, of the passenger attacking the driver with the butt end of a knife, as the driver reaches forward and down, as if reaching for a gun under the seat. (This illustrates the State's contention that an attacking passenger could have been expected to have inflicted grievous injuries on the driver as he prepared to defend himself by reaching for the gun under the front area of the driver's seat, as testified to by Mr. Bevel at tr. 922 and argued by the State at tr. 1650.) 19 Aplt's App. at 51-54 (internal footnotes omitted). 20 Soon after the first video, the jury watched a computer reenactment narrated by Mr. Bevel. The second video reenactment is a computer animation based upon the trajectory of the bullet passing through the victim's abdomen and into the vehicle seat. Harris, 13 P.3d at 492. The second video lasted 1 minute and 29 seconds and included no sound. The district court described scenes from the second video as follows: 21 Scene One: This scene shows a generic green sport utility vehicle. This scene transitions to scene two. 22 Scene Two: This computer-generated animation shows the driver, in the driver's seat shooting the passenger, seated in the passenger seat. The gun is in the driver's right hand. Nothing is shown to be in the passenger's hands. The passenger's head is leaning to the right side of the seat. The passenger's torso is tilted toward the right (passenger) side of the vehicle. 23 Scene Three: This is a depiction, with a human model in the passenger's position, of the distance from the gun to the passenger, in the scenario illustrated in the second scene. The shooter's right hand (with gun) is visible. The shooter is positioned outside of the vehicle (on the driver's side). 24 Scene Four: This computer-generated animation illustrates the path of a bullet, if fired as shown in scene two. Nothing is in the passenger's hands. The viewpoint rotates to the passenger's side of the vehicle, to illustrate the proximity of the exit wound for the torso shot (referred to at trial by some witnesses as the side shot) to the lower right passenger-side seat back. 25 Scene Five: This scene is an illustration of scene four, but with a human model. Captions for the torso shot entry wound and exit wound are superimposed. There is a caption (bullet) in the area where the bullet from the torso shot was found. 26 Scene Six: This computer-generated scene is substantially identical to scene five. This scene includes superimposed captions for the entrance wound (left side of the passenger) and the exit wound (right side of the passenger). 27 Scene Seven: This computer-generated scene depicts the same scenario as scene two, but with a red line illustrating bullet path and a blue line indicating modified bullet path. (Consistent with defendant's theory, this scene goes on to depict the passenger wielding a knife in his left hand, with a thrust of the knife toward the driver's right thigh.) The viewpoint is from the passenger's side, forward of the seats. The viewpoint then shifts to a directly rearward view, with the viewpoint situated on the centerline between the two seats, with illustration of a bullet path (red) from the passenger's upper left to lower right torso (diagonally) and a modified bullet path (blue) horizontally across the lower portion of the passenger's torso. 28 Scene Eight: This scene is the same as scene seven except that the passenger is depicted as rising up from his semi-reclined position to thrust the knife toward the driver's right thigh. This scene includes the same rotation of viewpoint as in scene seven. (This scene illustrates the rotation of the passenger's body while he wields the knife, a subject which received much attention from both sides at trial, due to the fact that if, as might reasonably be inferred, a passenger attacking the driver would tend to turn toward the driver, the path of travel of the torso shot through the passenger's torso is somewhat problematic for the defendant.) 29 Scene Nine: This computer-generated scene is the same as scene seven, except that the passenger is wielding the knife in his right hand, with the driver shown to be shooting the passenger with the gun in the driver's right hand. (The bullet path is illustrated in red, from the passenger's upper left to lower right torso.) The passenger's knife-wielding right hand crosses over to thrust at the driver's right leg. The bullet path (red) is shown as progressing from the passenger's upper left to lower right torso. The modified bullet path (blue) is shown to be progressing from the passenger's left thigh across his groin and to his right side (lower right torso), with an exit location near the exit location shown for the red bullet path. This scene includes the same rotation of viewpoint (from passenger's side, forward of seats to centerline, between seats) as in scene seven. 30 Aplt's App. at 54-56 (internal footnotes omitted). 31 Mr. Harris cross-examined Mr. Bevel about the videos and later called his own expert crime scene reconstructionist, Ronald Singer, to comment and to point out weaknesses with the two videos. In addition, the trial court gave the following limiting instruction, to which Mr. Harris agreed, at the conclusion of Mr. Bevel's direct testimony: The specific scenes shown in the videos of the State in which there purports to be specific self-defense moves have not been advanced by the Defendant. Rec. vol. V, at 929. 32