Opinion ID: 1331807
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Color Slides of Victim

Text: Mooney next claims error in the trial court's allowing into evidence a series of 19 color slides of the victim's body. Some slides depicted the victim as he was found slumped over his desk; some showed the face and the exit wound in the right forehead after the victim was turned face up; some showed the course of blood stains down his leg and arm and on the Persian rug; and some were made in the morgue showing the bullet entry wound in the back of the head, with the victim's hair pulled back for viewing. Georgia law is abundantly clear that a photograph which is relevant and material to the issues in the case is not excludable on the ground that it would inflame the minds of the jurors to see it. [Cits.] Stevens v. State, 242 Ga. 34, 38 (247 SE2d 838) (1978). It is well settled that photographs which do have probative value in establishing the cause of death, although gruesome and only corroborative or cumulative of other evidence, are entitled to admission. Teal v. State, 122 Ga. App. 532 (177 SE2d 840) (1970). The slides were relevant to the issues in the case, including but not limited to corroboration of Florence's account of how the killing was done. They were not unduly gruesome, and the fact that they were somewhat repetitive and that in some the body had been moved, will not alone rule them out. The trial court did not err in admitting these photographs. Godfrey v. State, 243 Ga. 302 (1979); Davis v. State, 240 Ga. 763, 766, 767 (243 SE2d 12) (1978); Reddish v. State, 238 Ga. 136 (231 SE2d 737) (1977); Edwards v. State, 233 Ga. 625, 627 (212 SE2d 802) (1975).