Court Opinion

ID: 9493803
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:20:06.11002+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:02.881434
License: Public Domain

FULLAM, Judge,
concurring:
I cannot join the opinion of the majority because I believe it was clear error for the trial judge to admit the gruesome videotape of the crime scene, for several reasons. In the first place, the entire tape was received in evidence and played for the jury. The tape runs approximately 45 minutes in length, and has an emotional impact almost equivalent to rendering the viewer a participant in the crime itself. For approximately 12 to 15 minutes, the camera is focused exclusively upon the victim’s lower genitalia — for no conceivable *350reason other than to inflame the jury. Whatever probative value the videotape provided — the location of the wounds, the distribution of the gore — was already provided by the (decidedly less inflammatory) still photographs in evidence, and in any event, could readily have been presented by a redacted version of the tape.
Finally, everyone agreed at the time, and still agrees, that the audio commentary on the tape (the cameraman’s views and opinions of what was being photographed) was inadmissable. But all that was done to exclude that inadmissable evidence, was to turn down the volume on the VCR when the tape was played for the jury, and, allegedly, to place “tape” over the volume control. And the entire tape and a VCR were present in the jury room throughout deliberations, and there was no assurance that the jury did not turn up the volume and listen to the audio portion of the tape. Indeed, common experience suggests that that may very well have happened.
In my view, to hold that admitting this evidence was not an abuse of the trial judge’s discretion is equivalent to ruling that admitting unduly inflammatory evidence can never be cause for reversal; if this evidence was not unduly inflammatory, then nothing is. The majority says the trial court’s ruling “cannot be considered arbitrary or irrational”; I do not believe that this is the proper test to be applied. Trial judges can commit reversible error without acting irrationally.
Although I disagree with the views expressed in the majority opinion, I nevertheless join in the judgment affirming the conviction, because the defendant’s detailed confession — admits his involvement in planning and carrying out the burglary, and admits that his companion (Johnny Kidd) murdered the victim while the burglary was in progress. In conformity with the defendant’s confession, he was acquitted of premeditated murder, but convicted of felony murder and burglary. Indeed, defense counsel’s closing argument at trial stressed the truthfulness of the defendant’s confession. In these circumstances, I am unable to say that the error in admitting the videotape was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial, or that a retrial would serve any useful purpose. I therefore concur in the result.