Court Opinion

ID: 9540544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:17:19.904972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:58.179654
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
One of the most difficult tasks of a presiding trial judge is to hold the proceedings within the channels of relevancy and to exclude all matters which might improperly affect the jury’s deliberations. Particularly is this true in a murder trial and particularly is it *529true that the judge in such a case should exercise unceasing vigilance to keep out all untoward influences.
In the case at bar the defendant Jeff Clanton was accused of having murdered a man called Ernest Page. It was unequivocally and conclusively established that he killed Page by firing revolver shots into his body. An eyewitness testified to seeing Clanton’s revolver accomplishing the fatal deed. The defendant himself admitted firing the mortal shots. The corpus delicti was proved beyond question.
There was thus no necessity whatsoever of introducing photographs of the dead body. Nevertheless the Commonwealth exhibited to the jury two gruesome pictures of the corpse. The defendant objected on the ground that their introduction would inflame the jury against him. His objection was overruled and, on being convicted, he assigned this ruling of the Trial Court as a reason for a new trial. It is a reason which has merit.
I believe that the time has arrived for this Court to declare that the exhibition of gruesome and repellent photographs, when they are not a necessary link in the chain of evidence against the accused, will constitute a trial error of sufficient gravity to require a retrial of the case. This case would have been an excellent vehicle for the promulgation of such a policy because the manner in which the objectionable photographs were displayed in the courtroom was especially reprehensible. Enlarged to poster size they were attached to a billboard next to the jury and there they remained throivghout the trial, unremittingly searing the eyes of the jurors with their horrible, provocative, and grisly appeal.
Even if it were to be assumed that the photographs served some purpose in letting the jurors look upon the image of the blood-bespattered, near-nude body of *530the victim, why was it necessary to flannt the gory image before them every minute of the trial? What purpose could such an exhibit have except that of whipping up the resentment of the jury against the man charged with the anatomical mutilation they were never allowed to forget? The issue in the trial was not: Who killed Page? — Everyone knew it was the defendant Clanton. The issue was: Did Clanton have any justification in taking the life of Page? Clanton said he shot in self-defense. He explained why he thought he was justified in firing at Page. The eyewitness Robbie Mae related what she saw. What could be added to this definitive testimony by the unceasing projection of the photographs of the dead body? They could only produce an ever-increasing animosity against the perpetrator of the mortal act, whether he was justified or not.
The Majority Opinion says: “The photographs were used in the instant case to indicate the kind and location of the wounds and/or the position of the victim’s body and its location in the apartment.” Accepting this as a reasonable conclusion, the Majority Opinion still offers no explanation why, after the jury had seen the location of the wounds and/or the position of the victim’s body and its location in the apartment, it became necessary to keep showing the jury the victim’s wounds for days. Even Marc Antony did not expose Julius Caesar’s wounds to the populace of Rome that long.
A murder trial is by its very nature dramatic, and sometimes it approaches theatrical projection, but the judge should prevent its being converted into a circus performance. The garish display in this trial of the enlarged pictures of a corpse, like lurid posters advertising a tawdry motion picture in a cheap movie house, could not help but detract from the dignity and im*531partiality of the court proceedings and, to that extent, the defendant was deprived of a fair trial.
The tendency today in fields of entertainment and other media of expression toward what is sordid, macabre, and ugly is appalling. It is to be hoped that this flood of unwholesome sensationalism may be stopped at the courthouse door when the issues involved do not require emphasis upon what, by its intrinsic character, is revolting or excessively disturbing to the normal sensibilities of normal mankind.
The whole legal world stood aghast at the murder trial conducted in the sports arena in Havana last year before 18,000 wild-eyed spectators crying for the blood of the defendant. While we would never allow our trials to degenerate into such a weird and savage spectacle, we should ever be alert to protect the jury from all outside forces, whether those forces be a shouting mob or screaming posters.