Court Opinion

ID: 9711089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:24:23.546026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.296374
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority concludes in this case that the pictures introduced into evidence were not inflammatory. It is unfortunate that the published opinions of this Court do not contain an accurate reproduction of photographs when the issue is whether the photographs are inflammatory. Without such reproduction, the readers and critics of our opinions are handicapped in deciding whether justice is being dispensed with an even hand or whether some citizens are being deprived of equal protection of the law.
*175Since the pictures are not reproduced in our opinions, I have in the past attempted to verbally describe the content of pictures before us. See Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 472 Pa. 129, 371 A.2d 468 (1977) (concurring and dissenting opinion of Manderino, J., joined by Roberts, J.). Although the verbal description method is inadequate, I must again in this case attempt to describe one of the photographs which the majority says is not inflammatory.
Have you, the reader, ever known a person who would not order fish for dinner at a restaurant because it is known that the fish is served with its lidless eye staring up from the plate? I am sure the answer for most of the readers of this opinion will be in the affirmative. One of the pictures in this case, of the deceased child, depicts the child in a prone position with the body obviously in a limp state; the eyelids of the dead child are open and the child’s eyes stare vacantly at the observer. The picture is one of the most inflammatory pictures I have observed since sitting on this Court. Yet, the majority says the picture is not inflammatory. This is another case in which the majority should simply state that it is abolishing the inflammatory picture rule rather than affirm a decision by stating that a picture is not inflammatory when there is no basis in reason for that conclusion.
I have joined the majority of this Court in concluding in other cases that a picture is not inflammatory even though the picture is of a dead person. I have done so, however, only in those cases where from a viewing of the picture, it cannot be determined that the person depicted is dead. I have also joined when the face of the individual is not visible. In these cases, although it may be known from other evidence that the person depicted in the picture is dead, that fact can not be determined by viewing the picture alone.
There is no doubt that the degree of sensitivity possessed by jurors varies considerably as to the subject of death. *176There are persons who are not emotionally affected in any way by viewing a dead body in whatever state. On the other hand, I am certain we are all aware of occasions when the presence of a dead body causes people to avoid a room or the viewing of the body. Because sensitivities vary greatly, a Court cannot dispense justice with an even hand when it decides a picture issue based on the sensitivities of the individual members of that Court. For this reason the law for many years would not, except in the clearest of cases, deem a picture noninflammatory when the picture depicted a dead person and that fact could be determined from the picture itself. Any picture that could be said to be inflammatory was not to be admitted unless it had “essential evidentiary value.” (Emphasis added.) Commonwealth v. Scaramuzzino, 455 Pa. 378, 381, 317 A.2d 225, 226 (1974). The majority today, without addressing whether the pictures were essential to the prosecution’s case, upholds their admissibility. I must dissent. Slowly in the last several years, the Court has in effect nullified the picture rule which worked well for many years. In doing so, it allows unfair emotional waves to cast doubt on the rational process by which our system of justice is to prove a man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.