Opinion ID: 1182224
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denial of Exhumation

Text: Defendant contends that his right to a fair trial was violated by the trial court's refusal to order exhumation of the victim's remains. The skeletal remains were discovered in April 1985 and were buried one month later. Prior to burial, the remains were examined by Drs. Froede and Birkby, at the prosecution's request, and by Drs. Keen (the Yavapai County Medical Examiner) and Chilton (a forensic odontologist), at defense counsel's request. Apparently, all of the examiners reached similar conclusions  that the remains belonged to the victim, but that the cause of death could not be determined. At the time the victim's parents arranged for funeral services, Lamar Couser was defendant's attorney. Defendant had requested that Stanton Bloom represent him, but Bloom had not yet accepted the case. The prosecution therefore notified both Couser and Bloom of the pending burial. Couser, as attorney of record, chose not to seek a delay of the funeral to allow for further examination of the bones, despite Bloom's request that he do so. Funeral services took place on May 30, 1985. On November 4, 1985, Bloom, who had since assumed defendant's representation, moved for the exhumation of the remains. The motion stated that, [b]ecause the autopsies previously done on the bones of [the victim] were totally inconclusive, this Defendant moves that these bones be exhumed in order to administer justice. It is felt that evidence can be secured by disinterment which would create material valuable and highly relevant in establishing the accused's guilt or innocence. Bloom supplemented this motion with his own affidavit, stating that he had spoken with an expert, whose identity he refused to disclose, who had assured him that he would be able to determine the cause of death. The affidavit also indicated that the unknown expert's examination might entail sending the remains out of the United States. The motion to exhume was denied by the trial court without comment. The defense initiated special action proceedings seeking appellate review of this ruling, but both the court of appeals and this court declined to accept jurisdiction. See Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, 2 CA-SA 335 (jurisdiction declined Jan. 7, 1986), and Arizona Supreme Court, CV-86-0085-PR (petition for review denied March 25, 1986). The power to grant the exhumation of human remains lies within the sound discretion of the trial court, see, e.g., Moss v. State, 152 Ala. 30, 34, 44 So. 598, 599 (1907), and we will not overturn the court's decision on this matter absent an abuse of that discretion. We find no abuse in this case. The trial court was presented only with Mr. Bloom's cryptic promises that valuable and highly relevant evidence could be discovered by exhumation. However, he revealed neither the name of the expert nor the basis for the expert's conclusions. Exhumation of the victim's body is to be allowed only under extraordinary circumstances. Where existence of the evidence sought was so speculative and uncertain, and its value in aiding defendant's defense so conjectural and remote, the trial court properly exercised its discretion in refusing appellant's motion. Commonwealth v. Kivlin, 267 Pa.Super. 270, 281, 406 A.2d 799, 805 (1979); see also Annotation, Disinterment in Criminal Cases, 63 A.L.R.3d 1294, 1302 (1975) (exhumation is appropriate when absolutely essential to the administration of justice). We find no error in the denial of the motion to exhume the victim's remains.