Court Opinion

ID: 9698226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:45:17.501987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:39.483280
License: Public Domain

MANDERINO, Justice,
dissenting.
Once again this Court is asked to review a claim that it was error for the trial court to admit an inflammatory photograph of a corpse. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 477 Pa. 505, 384 A.2d 1202 (1978) (Manderino, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Norris, 477 Pa. 239, 383 A.2d 912 (1978) (Manderino, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 472 Pa. 129, 371 A.2d 468 (1977); id. at 489 91 (Roberts & Manderino, JJ., concurring and dissenting). Once again the majority finds no error in admitting such photographs. Although I have already expressed the view that recent decisions of this Court make it difficult to construct a case where a new trial is granted because of the admission of inflammatory photographs, Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 472 Pa. 129, 371 A .2d 468, 497 501 (1977) (Manderino & Roberts, JJ., concurring and dissenting), I must express my dismay and disagreement with the reasoning employed by the majority in this case.
The trial court admitted a photograph of the skeletal remains of one of the deceased. The majority is forced to conclude that the photograph is inflammatory, although it does so reluctantly, stating that the photograph is not “particularly inflammatory.” Even under the test a majority of this Court adopted in Commonwealth v. Petrakovich, 459 Pa. 511, 521, 329 A.2d 844, 849 (1974), a standard with which I continue to disagree, the pictures are therefore inadmissible unless “of such essential evidentiary value that their need *342clearly outweighs the likelihood of inflaming the minds and passions of the jury.” (Emphasis added).
By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that this photograph had “essential evidentiary value.” The majority holds this photograph admissible because it “[provided] an example of how the bodies were situated at the gravesite, [and] illustrated what happened to the victims, thereby aiding in understanding the alleged crime.” The flimsiness of this purported relevance is self-apparent. A skeleton cannot possibly illustrate “what happened to the victims.” Death was by strangulation, and I am at a loss to understand how a skeleton can illustrate strangulation. I am also at an utter loss to comprehend the relevance of “how the bodies were situated.” There is absolutely no issue in this case even remotely related to the situation of the victims’ bodies. Not only was this photograph lacking in “essential evidentiary value,” this photograph had no relevance whatsoever. Under any test ever articulated by this Court for reviewing a trial court’s discretion in admitting photographs of corpses, to admit this photograph was an abuse of that discretion. I dissent.