Opinion ID: 757025
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Evidence Regarding Bombing Victims

Text: 109 At trial, the government presented testimony from several victims of the bombing, rescue workers who aided the victims, and a medical examiner who examined some of the fatalities from the attack. In addition, the government introduced photographs of several victims killed in the bombing. Salameh and Abouhalima urge that the trial court should have excluded this evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. 110 During the first four days of the trial, the government presented a number of witnesses to describe what happened before, during and after the bombing. In addition to describing their personal experiences as a result of the attack, several witnesses recounted observing the panic and suffering of other victims. Indeed, one such witness broke down in tears while testifying. 111 The government also introduced thirteen photographs of the six people killed in the bombing. Four of the photographs were facial close-ups of the bombing victims, six depicted the position of one of the victims at death, one was a close-up of an injury to a victim's shoulder, and two showed victims' bodies as they lay in stretchers. One of the victims shown on a stretcher was clearly pregnant. The photographs are graphic depictions of the corpses. Undeniably, they are disturbing. 112 After the photographs were introduced, a medical examiner testified that in her opinion, the victims were killed by blunt impact trauma caused by objects traveling at great speed. The medical examiner used the photos of the victims to illustrate injuries consistent with her opinion. 113 The defendants protest that the evidence relating to the victims was unfairly prejudicial. As explained above, Rule 403 requires the district court to exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See Fed.R.Evid. 403. A district judge's Rule 403 analysis is reversible error only when it is a clear abuse of discretion. See Valdez, 16 F.3d at 1332.
114 To prove the charges in the indictment, the government had to demonstrate that the World Trade Center bombing caused death and personal injury. Thus, the government suggests that the victim testimony and photographs had substantial probative value in proving the charges against the defendants. Salameh and Abouhalima point out that they offered to stipulate that the explosion in the World Trade Center caused injury and death. They maintain that their proffered stipulation eliminated any probative value that the victim testimony and photographs otherwise might have had. 115 The Supreme Court recently has reaffirmed that a criminal defendant may not stipulate or admit his way out of the full evidentiary force of the case as the government chooses to present it. Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 117 S.Ct. 644, 653, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997) (limiting exception to this rule to cases where defendant offers to stipulate to prior felony conviction); see United States v. Gilliam, 994 F.2d 97, 101 (2d Cir.1993). [A] piece of evidence may address any number of separate elements, striking hard because it shows so much at once. Old Chief, 519 U.S. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 653. 116 The evidence regarding the victims was probative of the nature and location of the explosion that killed the victims, which the defendants disputed at trial. Government experts opined that the devastation of the World Trade Center was wrought by a bomb hidden in a van parked in the B-2 level of the World Trade Center. The defendants vigorously contested this theory. The testimony of the victims supported the government's experts' version of events. Moreover, the photographs of the victims provided corroboration for the expert witnesses' conclusions regarding the cause of the blast and the resulting casualties and damage. Thus, the testimony and photographs of the victims had substantial probative value, notwithstanding the defendants' offer to stipulate to death and injury. See United States v. Gantzer, 810 F.2d 349, 351 (2d Cir.1987).
117 There is no doubt that the testimony and photographs of the victims were shocking, and a significant amount of such evidence was admitted. Nevertheless, as explained above, the evidence had substantial probative value. Probative evidence is not inadmissible solely because it has a tendency to upset or disturb the trier of fact. See Kuntzelman v. Black, 774 F.2d 291, 292 (8th Cir.1985); United States v. Brady, 579 F.2d 1121, 1129 (9th Cir.1978). 118 Judge Duffy weighed the prejudicial effect of the evidence and concluded that it did not substantially outweigh its probative value. His decision was not an abuse of discretion. See Valdez, 16 F.3d at 1332.