Court Opinion

ID: 9571296
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:30:35.288841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:47.973471
License: Public Domain

Benham, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur specially because, while I agree with the affirmance of the judgment of conviction entered against appellant, I find myself at odds with the majority’s affirmance of the admission of the autopsy photograph.
The photo at issue, taken after the victim had expired, depicts the victim’s open chest cavity and heart, as well as several blood-covered, gloved hands. The medical examiner testified that hospital emergency room surgeons had earlier sewn up the hole in the victim’s heart caused by the stabbing, and had reopened the victim to remove the stitches after the victim’s death, one and a half hours after the initial operation. The photo was taken after the stitches were removed.
In Brown v. State, 250 Ga. 862 (5) (302 SE2d 347) (1983), the Supreme Court announced that “[a] photograph which depicts the victim after autopsy incisions are made or after the state of the body is changed by authorities or the pathologist will not be admissible unless necessary to show some material fact which becomes apparent only because of the autopsy.” “[I]t is error to admit photographs that portray damage to the victim’s body that was not caused by the assailant. [Cits.]” Roper v. State, 258 Ga. 847 (3) (375 SE2d 600) (1989). In the case at bar, it was unquestioned that appellant had stabbed the victim and that the victim had died as a result. Thus, the photograph was not “necessary” to show that the victim had died from a stab wound. The State maintains that the photograph was necessary to rebut appellant’s assertion that he had acted in self-defense. The State theorizes that the jury needed to view the internal stab wound in order to determine whether the victim could have assaulted appellant prior to the fatal stabbing, as appellant testified he did, and whether the victim could have chased appellant after the stabbing. I do not believe the jury was capable of looking at the photograph and discerning from it whether the wound was such as to refute appellant’s defense. In addition, the State had the testimony of eyewitnesses to establish what happened before the stabbing, and the testimony of the medical examiner, who stated that the wound the victim received would have incapacitated him within 20 or 30 seconds of the stabbing, to rebut appellant’s testimony concerning the victim’s post-stabbing capabilities. Brown clearly required the exclusion of the post-autopsy photograph of the victim’s heart. McCullough v. State, 255 Ga. 672 (2) (341 SE2d 706) (1986). However, due to the overwhelming evidence supporting the jury verdict, I must conclude that the admission of the photograph, although error, must be relegated to *789the category of harmless error. Heard v. State, 257 Ga. 1 (2) (354 SE2d 115).
Decided November 20, 1989
Rehearing denied December 4, 1989
Nelson & Bradley, Stephen R. Bradley, G. Carey Nelson III, for appellant.
Darrell E. Wilson, District Attorney, Mickey R. Thacker, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.