Court Opinion

ID: 9542484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:34:56.038719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:07.360088
License: Public Domain

Dissent
Jackson, J.
I am unble to concur in the majority opinion. By this dissent I do not mean to say that the appellant may *239not be guilty of the crime with which he was charged. I do say that from the evidence adduced it appears that appellant was charged by indictment with the crime of murder in the second degree of one William Robert Bray, and convicted thereof by evidence that he afterwards shot officer Dashiell of the Indianapolis Police Department.
Appellant objected to the introduction of State’s exhibits 3, 4, 5 and 6. These exhibits were photographs taken after the alleged murder and in connection with the shooting of officer Dashiell, and in my opinion, were improperly admitted and such admission constituted reversible error. Further admission of the testimony of one Bill Northerner as to the shooting of officer Dashiell, over the objection of appellant, in my opinion, constituted reversible error. The exhibits and the testimony of the witness related to events occurring after the commission of the crime, and must be presumed to be prejudicial for the reason that they do not tend to prove any of the elements of the crime charged. Loveless v. State (1960), 240 Ind. 534, 166 N. E. 2d 864; Hergenrother v. State (1939), 215 Ind. 89, 18 N. E. 2d 784; Miller v. State (1910), 174 Ind. 255, 91 N. E. 930.
There is no evidence in the record of officer Dashiell’s testimony as to the particulars of the broadcast, after which he attempted to stop the appellant, as to whether the car in which appellant was found to be riding was stolen, whether the occupants were wanted, or whether or not the occupants of the automobile should be apprehended.
Exhibits five and six certainly can throw no light on the crime with which appellant was charged. Exhibit five is identified as the appellant lying in a pool of blood after he was shot by other officers after he had shot officer Dashiell. Exhibit six is a picture of the car in which appellant was riding showing the right front door open, a firearm laying on the floor, and what appears to be blood on the seat and floor of the front of the automobile. Exhibit six is identified by officer Graham as “[t] hat’s a gun that was laying there *240that I picked up after Meridith was lain out on the ground.” Again it is true that exhibit six is a photograph taken after other officers had shot appellant after he shot officer Dashiell. These exhibits were improperly admitted in evidence, shown to the jury and commented on, and their admission under the circumstances present in this cause constituted reversible error.
Appellant’s point, that the evidence relative to the shooting of officer Dashiell was prejudicial and that the constant repetition of the same evidence so inflamed the jury that it clouded the evidence that was submitted with regard to the charge of second degree murder, is in my opinion well taken.
The cause should be remanded with instructions to grant appellant’s motion for a new trial.
Note. — Reported in 214 N. E. 2d 385.