Opinion ID: 2127352
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: identification of real evidence.

Text: Thomas Hinkle, Appellant's ex-stepson, testified that Appellant was like a father to him. On June 25, 2001, the two met at a gas station owned by Hinkle's mother (Appellant's ex-wife) in Berea, Madison County, Kentucky. After they conversed for approximately fifteen minutes, officers of the Berea Police Department arrived and arrested Appellant on a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The officers arranged for Powell's Towing Service to tow Appellant's vehicle to Powell's property for storage. Hinkle knew that Appellant kept a pistol hidden in the engine compartment of the vehicle. That night, he entered Powell's property, broke open the hood of the vehicle, and retrieved the pistol, because I was thinking I was taking years off his life, and don't want to see my father go to the penitentiary for the rest of his life. Hinkle testified that he gave the pistol to Appellant's friend, Dennis Yarber. When the prosecutor displayed a gun and holster to Hinkle, the following colloquy ensued: Q. Do you recognize this gun and holster? A. Yes, I do. Q. To the best of your knowledge, is this the gun that you got from.... A. I have no idea of whether it is or not. Q. But to the best of your knowledge, is it? ... A. Like I told you, I guess it is. I have no idea whether it is or.... Q. It looks like it? A. Well, that's been months ago. Like I told you, I have been in a mental institution, and I am incompetent and I couldn't even tell you. Do you know what I mean? You all got me a nervous wreck. I know that's the reason I am here, but I don't know  I can't  that's all I can say. Dennis Yarber testified that on June 26, 2001, Hinkle brought him a gun wrapped in terry cloth that Yarber thought was going to be a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver. Hinkle told Yarber that he bought it off some kid for pot and offered to sell it to Yarber. When Yarber removed the terry cloth, he discovered that the gun was not a .38 caliber revolver but a 9-mm pistol. Yarber declined to purchase the gun but told Hinkle he would keep it for him. Six hours later, police officers arrived at Yarber's residence and confiscated the gun. The prosecutor then showed Yarber the same 9-mm pistol he had previously displayed to Hinkle, and Yarber identified the gun as being the one that Hinkle had left with him. Detective Barnes testified that he sent the gun to a laboratory for testing but that it was found to contain no fingerprints, blood stains, or traces of skin. Appellant testified that he owned a snub-nosed .38 revolver and a sawed-off shotgun, but not a 9-mm pistol. Detective Barnes searched Appellant's vehicle and found some .38 caliber ammunition but did not find any 9-mm ammunition. (He also did not find any property stolen from the Boones, though he did find the green shirt that Mrs. Boone identified as being similar to the one worn by the male perpetrator on the night of the robbery.) The Commonwealth did not display the 9-mm pistol to either of the victims during trial or ask either of them to describe the pistol brandished by the male perpetrator during the robbery. Detective Barnes testified twice during the Commonwealth's case-in-chief. During his first testimony, he described his investigation of the crime scene and his search of Appellant's vehicle. During his second testimony, he identified the 9-mm pistol as being the pistol obtained from Yarber. The only evidence purporting to identify the pistol used in this robbery was the following colloquy between Barnes and the prosecutor at the conclusion of Barnes's testimony about his search of the vehicle: Q. Detective Barnes, what was the description of the gun that the perpetrator had? A. A blue steel automatic. Q. You did not find that in the vehicle? A. No. Barnes did not state from whom he obtained the description or that the 9-mm pistol obtained from Yarber fit that description. Neither the pistol nor a photograph of it is in this record, thus we have no way of knowing whether the 9-mm pistol was a blue steel automatic. But even if it were, Barnes's testimony, standing alone, was insufficient to identify that 9-mm pistol as the pistol used in the robbery. The requirement of ... identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims. KRE 901(a). That is but another way of saying that: The identification requirement for tangible evidence ... is grounded in a logical demand that, when offering a tangible object into evidence, a party should show, as a preliminary matter, its connection to the incident involved in the litigation. Lawson, supra, § 11.00[2][a], at 840. We have upheld the admission of weapons into evidence based on eyewitness testimony that the weapon was the one used in the commission of the offense, Beason v. Commonwealth, 548 S.W.2d 835, 836-37 (Ky.1977); that it was of the same size and shape as the weapon used in the commission of the offense, Sweatt v. Commonwealth, 550 S.W.2d 520, 523 (Ky.1977); or that it was found at the scene of the offense and was capable of inflicting the type of injury sustained by the victim, Barth v. Commonwealth, 80 S.W.3d 390, 402 (Ky.2001); Grundy v. Commonwealth, 25 S.W.3d 76, 79-80 (Ky.2000). However, in Reed v. Commonwealth, 579 S.W.2d 109 (Ky.1979), we held that testimony that it looks like my gun but I couldn't swear to it, was insufficient identification to justify its admission into evidence: It is apparent from the evidence that appellant's statement that the gun looked like his falls far short of the standards of admissibility which would tend to prove that the gun was the one actually used by appellant in the robbery and subsequent shooting. Id. at 111. In retrospect, Reed probably pushed the identification requirement too far. See United States v. Johnson, 637 F.2d 1224, 1247-48 (9th Cir.1980) (absolute certainty of identification not required; uncertainty affects weight, not admissibility), abrogated on other grounds by Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 715, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 1450, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989). Under Reed , Hinkle's uncertain identification of the 9-mm pistol (I guess it is.) would have been insufficient to prove that it was even the pistol that he retrieved from the engine compartment of Appellant's vehicle. While we are unwilling to go that far, no evidence, direct or circumstantial, competent or incompetent, identified the 9-mm pistol allegedly found in Appellant's vehicle nine days after the robbery as the pistol used in the robbery. Unless additional identification evidence is produced upon retrial, the evidence concerning the pistol shall not be admitted.