Court Opinion

ID: 9586819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:15:32.379511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:53.110963
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
Accepting that there are insufficient votes to reverse and remand for a new trial, then I concur only in the result of the majority opinion which sends this case back for proper resentencing. I agree with Justice Johnson’s statement that upon resentencing the trial judge must apply principles enunciated in our recent State v. Charboneau.
Otherwise I generally cannot agree with the majority opinion’s pronouncements on the following issues: (1) the admission of the photographs of the decomposed body of the victim; and (2) the admission of the testimony of the defendant’s former wife regarding the defendant’s field-dressing of game animals.
A glance at some of the exhibits that the jury had with them during their deliberations and a very quick delving into the transcript of this case makes it all too clear that this was a trial rife with evidence unduly prejudicial to the defendant. Photographs of the victim’s decomposed body are the best example of this proposition. At the outset it should be noted that the majority opinion places undeserved reliance upon the brief of the solicitor general in making the following statement:
Since the photographic evidence is relevant, there is no objection on the basis that it could be presented in a somehow less graphic form. The State is not obligated to present evidence which has a lesser impact. State v. Rollo [221 Or. 428], 351 P.2d 422 (Ore.1960).
Majority Opinion, p. 290, 775 P.2d p. 604.
The State’s brief provided us with this statement:
When photographic evidence is relevant, it is not a ground for objection that it could be presented in less graphic form. The State is not obligated to rely on evidence having the least impact. See, State v. Rollo [221 Or. 428], 351 P.2d 442 [422] (Ore.1960).
This state of affairs would not be objectionable if reliance on the Oregon case was justified — but it is not. A reading of the underlying Rollo opinion reveals no such proposition which the majority opinion, following the solicitor general’s lead, has drawn from it.
However, more important is the substantive law relating to the admission of photographic evidence, and the way in which this photographic evidence was handled. The majority opinion on page 290, 775 P.2d on page 604 claims that the photographs were necessary to show the nature of the crime and the type of wounds inflicted upon the victim’s body. However, defendant’s counsel was prepared to stipulate that the victim was murdered by knife wounds and to every other fact regarding the state of the victim’s body when it was discovered. Tr., Vol. 2, p. 314. Thus, where none of the information conveyed by the photographs was at issue, the photographs were not material, but were irrelevant and cumulative. This same information could have been provided by a coroner’s testimony.
If the photographs were not relevant because they did not provide evidence of facts at issue, they should have not been admitted. That the photographs are highly inflammatory renders them even less admissible. These photographs were 8 inch by *29612 inch color photos of the victim’s body in a shocking state of mutilation and decomposition. State’s Exhibit No. 23 was a close up view of the victim’s rectal area through which the sexual organs had been removed. Others were close up views of neck wounds which allowed partial views of the victim's face. Interestingly, State’s Exhibits 4 and 5 were photos of the victim in life. Exhibit No. 4 was a close up full face portrait of the victim; Exhibit No. 5 was a photo of the victim with family members. All of these photos were in the jury room with the jury during their deliberations. It requires no great leap of imagination to picture what must have gone through the jurors' minds as they compared the photos of the victim in happy days with her family members in life as against the horrifying photos of her body in death. Since defendant’s counsel was willing to stipulate to any information which the photos could convey, the district court should have recognized that it would be an abuse of discretion to admit these incendiary photos into evidence. It must be remembered that at the time these photographs were admitted in evidence the defendant was an accused person presumed to be innocent. This leads to the question: Was this a fair trial where such inflammatory pictorial evidence was admitted in a trial where there was no question but that murder had been committed, and the issue to be resolved was whether the accused was the perpetrator? This is especially so here, where as the majority itself has noted, the State’s case rests on circumstantial evidence.
In passing on the admissibility of the photographs, Justice Shepard properly acknowledges State v. Martinez, 92 Idaho 183, 439 P.2d 691, relied upon by the defendant: “Therein the Court dealt with the need to balance the probative value and relevance of such evidence against resulting prejudice to the defendant. We agree with the Martinez balancing rule.” The next sentence, however, after conceding that “the photographs were admittedly gruesome in nature,” asserts — without explaining why or how — that the photographs “were necessary to show the nature of all the circumstances, and although such information may be gruesome in nature it is necessary to make an intelligent fact finding decision.” Maj. Op., at p. 290, 775 P.2d at p. 604.
The statement that the photographs were necessary is sheer ipse dixit which does not include therein any balancing of prejudice versus probative value, which was said to be the rule of Martinez. Moreover, if Martinez included any issue of gruesome photographs having been admitted at trial I am uninformed by reading it. “Martinez was charged with the second degree murder of one Michael Anthony Calborn, a two-year ten-month old infant” who died as a result “of injuries alleged inflicted by (defendant’s) repeated kicking and striking the deceased’s body.” 92 Idaho 184, 439 P.2d 691.1 On appeal of Martinez’s conviction, Justice Spear in authoring the Court’s unanimous opinion, noted as to a contention that the photographs were inadmissible, that “they were admitted for the stated purposes of identification, as an aid to the jury in understanding the nature and extent of the injuries, and as probative of implied malice, i.e., that appellant had acted with an abandoned and malignant heart ... The record shows that the trial court carefully considered objections ... for the state’s purposes herein-before mentioned.” 92 Idaho at 192-193, 439 P.2d 695-696.
Justice Shepard, for a majority, says only as to the admission of the photographs, “that although such information may be gruesome in nature it is necessary to make an intelligent fact-finding decision” (Maj. Op., p. 290, 775 P.2d at p. 604.) citing State v. Izatt, 96 Idaho 667, 534 P.2d 1107, for the quoted proposition. Izatt in an interesting case, but on four or five readings of it, I marvel at it being cited by the majority for the proposition it is said to support, which is the more remarkable because Justice Bakes who today joins Justice Shepard’s opinion, authored Izatt. Neither *297Izatt nor Rollo substantiate the propositions for which they are offered.
Along the same lines of unnecessary prejudice was the admission of the testimony of the defendant’s former wife regarding the defendant’s activities while field-dressing game animals. While it may have contained some kernel of relevance concerning the specific type of mutilation of the victim’s body in this case, for certain the testimony was highly prejudicial. It allowed the prosecution to portray the defendant as a grotesque deviant, which in the mind of the average juror would lead to the conclusion that defendant was a bad person, and therefore he likely was the person who committed the murder. The majority’s statement that the prejudicial effect of this evidence was inconsequential because almost all evidence in a criminal trial is prejudicial to a defendant misses the point. Evidence to obtain a conviction is and is intended to be prejudicial. That is a given. But it should be evidence relating to the crime committed.
As one delves into the record it becomes apparent that the district court was overly kind in allowing the prosecutor to have admitted virtually any evidence which it presented. The defendant’s wife was allowed to testify as to the defendant’s obsession with knives. Actual knives were allowed to be introduced into evidence, not withstanding that there was no contention that such were murder weapons. These were knives which the defendant happened to own. These knives had absolutely no relevance to the case. Other evidence, on a par with photographs of the victim admitted into evidence included photographs of an anatomically correct life-sized female doll which was graphically altered to demonstrate the victim’s wounds. The jury entered upon its deliberation in a jury room reeking of the unfair prejudice from evidence which the prosecution did not need to show that the victim had been murdered, and the defendant may have been the perpetrator.

. It is of interest to note that a similar infant homicide, State v. Stuart, 110 Idaho 163, 715 P.2d 833 (1986), resulted in a charge of torture murder, a conviction, and a death sentence.