Opinion ID: 835875
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Post-Mortem Photographs

Text: In another assignment of error, defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his supplementary motion in limine to exclude post-mortem photographs of the victim and portions of the videotape of the crime scene that depicted the victim's body. Defendant argues that, because he had offered to stipulate to the facts that the photographs would tend to show as true, the photographs were inadmissible as irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial. [8] After a hearing, the trial court denied defendant's motion. [9] We first address defendant's argument that, in light of his offered stipulation, the post-mortem photographs were irrelevant to any material issue in the case. OEC 401 provides: `Relevant evidence' means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. OEC 401 establishes a very low threshold for the admission of evidence, that is, evidence is relevant so long as it increases or decreases, even slightly, the probability of the existence of a fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action. State v. Barone, 329 Or. 210, 238, 986 P.2d 5 (1999), cert. den., 528 U.S. 1086, 120 S.Ct. 813, 145 L.Ed.2d 685 (2000). We review a trial court's determination of relevance under OEC 401 for errors of law. State v. Titus, 328 Or. 475, 481, 982 P.2d 1133 (1999). We first note that, without the stipulation, the photographs of the victim's body were relevant. The state sought to admit the photographs to illustrate the testimony of several witnesses, to prove the nature and circumstances of the victim's death, and to prove that defendant had acted intentionally. Defendant asserts, however, that the photographs became irrelevant once he offered to stipulate to the facts that the state sought to prove with the photographs. Defendant's argument is not well taken. His proposed stipulation only provides an alternate form of proof. It did not have the effect of making otherwise relevant evidence irrelevant. Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Oregon Evidence § 401.02, Art IV-4 (4th ed. 2002) (quoting 1981 Conference Committee to OEC 401) addresses that point: `The fact to which the evidence is directed need not be in dispute. While situations will arise which call for the exclusion of evidence offered to prove a point conceded by the opponent, the ruling should be made on the basis of    considerations [set forth in] Rule 403, rather than under any general requirement that evidence is admissible only if directed to matters in dispute.' We conclude that the mere availability of defendant's offered stipulation as an alternate form of proof did not render the photographs irrelevant. We next turn to defendant's argument that the trial court should have excluded the photographs because, in light of his offered stipulation, they were unfairly prejudicial. OEC 403 provides: Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. In the context of OEC 403, `unfair prejudice' means `an undue tendency to suggest decisions on an improper basis, commonly although not always an emotional one.' State v. Moore, 324 Or. 396, 407-08, 927 P.2d 1073 (1996). We review a trial court's decision under OEC 403 for an abuse of discretion. Id. at 407, 927 P.2d 1073. Defendant argues that the photographs depicting the victim's body were unfairly prejudicial because they had a tendency to evok[e] a visceral, emotional response from the jurors. Defendant further argues that, because his offered stipulation covered the facts that the state sought to prove with the photographs, the court should have excluded them. In support of his argument, defendant relies on Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1997); State v. Zimmerlee, 261 Or. 49, 492 P.2d 795 (1972); and State v. McKendall, 36 Or.App. 187, 584 P.2d 316 (1978), overruled on other grounds by State v. Lopez, 147 Or.App. 314, 936 P.2d 386 (1997). In particular, defendant points to the following statement that the Court of Appeals made in McKendall: [W]hen a defendant offers to stipulate to a fact, proof of the fact would be prejudicial to the defendant, and the evidence offered in proof is not probative of any issue other than that which the stipulation addresses, the evidence is inadmissible. McKendall, 36 Or.App. at 198, 584 P.2d 316. However, as we explain below, defendant's reliance on those cases is misplaced. In McKendall, the authorities charged the defendant with murder under an accomplice theory. At trial, the defendant sought to exclude photographs of the murder victim's body by stipulating that someone had murdered the victim. The court determined that, other than the fact that someone had murdered the victim, photographic evidence of the murder victim's body was irrelevant to the issues in the case. Because the defendant's stipulation covered that fact and because the photographic evidence of the victim's murder would be unfairly prejudicial to the defendant, the court concluded that the trial court should have excluded the evidence. Id. at 197-98, 584 P.2d 316. In reaching that conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied on this court's decision in Zimmerlee. In Zimmerlee, the state charged the defendant with armed robbery of Palmer. In the course of the robbery, the defendant had pointed a pistol at Palmer. Later the same evening, the defendant had pointed a pistol at Charley before provoking a fight with him. The defendant sought to exclude evidence of his encounter with Charley by stipulating to the fact that he was in possession of the pistol when he first pursued Charley. This court determined that evidence of [the] defendant's encounter with Charley was relevant to the issue of [the] defendant's possession of the gun at the time of the robbery. Zimmerlee, 261 Or. at 53, 492 P.2d 795. However, the court explained that [o]nce [the] defendant offered to stipulate that he had possession of the gun subsequent to the alleged robbery, the only purpose that would be served by permitting the state to prove the subsequent crime would be to show that because [the] defendant had committed another crime he was a bad man and therefore probably committed the crime for which he was charged. Id. at 54, 492 P.2d 795. Thus, the court concluded that the unfairly prejudicial effect of the evidence of the defendant's encounter with Charley outweighed its probative value and was not admissible. Defendant also relies on Old Chief, in which the United States Supreme Court addressed, under the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), [10] an issue similar to the one presented in Zimmerlee. In Old Chief, the defendant was charged with, among other things, being a felon in possession of a firearm. The defendant had sought to exclude the evidence of the name and nature of his prior felony by stipulating that he previously had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment exceeding one year. The Court determined that the trial court should have excluded the evidence. The Court concluded that the defendant's stipulation provided evidence of equal evidentiary significance as the prosecutor's reading of defendant's official record of conviction. Old Chief, 519 U.S. at 191, 117 S.Ct. 644. However, the defendant's stipulation did not present the tendency of unfair prejudice that the name and nature of his conviction presented. [11] The Court emphasized that the case was unique in that the fact to be proven was the defendant's legal status and that [p]roving status without telling exactly why that status was imposed leaves no gap in the story of a defendant's subsequent criminality, and its demonstration by stipulation or admission neither displaces a chapter from a continuous sequence of conventional evidence nor comes across as an officious substitution, to confuse or offend or provoke reproach. Id. In all three of the cases discussed above, the excluded evidence was relevant only to prove a discrete fact in the case. Further, even without the defendants' offered stipulations, the excluded evidence in those cases had an undue tendency to suggest a decision on an improper basis. By offering to stipulate to the discrete fact that the prejudicial evidence was offered to prove, the defendants were able to tip the balance in favor of excluding the prejudicial evidence, because the stipulation provided a nonprejudicial alternate form of proof. In contrast to those cases, defendant here sought to replace the state's photographic evidence with a lengthy series of terse stipulations. Those stipulations were not of equal evidentiary significance, because they would have left gaps in the prosecution's narrative of the crime. In addition, although defendant's stipulations would have covered much of what the state sought to prove with the photographs of the victim's body, those stipulations could not replace the demonstrative value of the photographic evidence. The photographs illustrated the testimony of several of the state's witnesses and helped to clarify that testimony for the jury. The principles discussed in Old Chief, Zimmerlee, and McKendall are not applicable in this context. We also note that this court previously has stated that photographs of a victim's body that are relevant are not unfairly prejudicial solely because they are graphic. See State v. Barone, 328 Or. 68, 88, 969 P.2d 1013 (1998), cert. den., 528 U.S. 1135, 120 S.Ct. 977, 145 L.Ed.2d 928 (2000) (Although the photographs in question were graphic, they could not be said to be remarkable in the context of a murder trial.). Defendant has not suggested that the photographs in this case created a danger of undue prejudice other than to evoke a person's natural revulsion to death. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the photographs and video of the victim's body.