Opinion ID: 1595336
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Glass Shards and Fragments of Burnt Material.

Text: ¶ 49. Ross contends that the trial court erred in admitting glass shards consistent with a motor vehicle's tail light found at Yancey's residence and a pile of ashes that Jones testified were the remains of Yancey's wallet. The relevance of the tail light fragments was tenuous at best. While Ross' car had a broken right tail light, all the testimony at trial indicated that it had been broken for at least six months. There was even testimony that the broken tail light had been spray-painted to disguise the fact that it was broken. Linda Grey testified that the car she saw in her driveway already had a broken tail light. It is undisputed this episode happened prior to the murder. Finally, the State's forensic expert testified that he could not make the tail light fragments fit mechanically into what remained of Ross' tail light. Despite the complete lack of direct evidence connecting the fragments to Ross' car, the State argued that Ross had broken out the tail light after he stumbled with Yancey's television. The relevancy of the ashes taken from Hale's grill presents similar problems. Jones testified that Ross had burned a wallet, using, depending on which story, either papers taken from the wallet or papers removed from his car. The ashes then sat on the grill from Friday night until Sunday night, when the sheriff's deputies collected them. At trial, the State made no showing that the ashes had been covered or that they had remained undisturbed for that forty-eight hour span. Most troubling, the State conducted no forensic tests on the ashes to determine their composition, yet at trial asserted that they were the remains of a wallet. ¶ 50. At trial, Ross not only failed to object to the introduction of these items, but affirmatively stated for the record that there was no objection. Such action effectively waives the issue on appeal. Ballenger v. State, 667 So.2d 1242, 1267 (Miss. 1995). Though Ross did challenge the admission of these items in his motion for a new trial, a belated challenge to an evidentiary ruling does not rehabilitate an otherwise untimely claim. Smith, 797 So.2d at 856. Nevertheless, the heightened scrutiny applicable to the review of death penalty cases mandates a review of the merits of Ross' claim. Walker, 913 So.2d at 216 (relaxing the contemporaneous objection rule in death penalty cases). ¶ 51. As noted above, the admission of evidence is within the discretion of the trial court, and courts have been instructed to construe the Mississippi Rules of Evidence in favor of admission. See Irby, 893 So.2d at 1047; M.R.E. 401 cmt. Though the tail light fragments may have been of slight probative value, Ross had ample opportunity to highlight that the state's own expert could not mechanically fit the fragments into the tail light frame. Similarly, Ross was able to challenge the probative weight of the ashes by emphasizing that no forensic tests had been conducted to determine the composition of the burnt material. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence. Irby, 893 So.2d at 1047. Nor does the admission of the evidence amount to plain error, since the admission, by itself, did not constitute a miscarriage of justice. Gray, 549 So.2d at 1321.