Court Opinion

ID: 9632097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:02:53.071198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:08.695903
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) :
I concur, without qualification in the main opinion’s reasons and authorities' cited anent the speedy trial issue.
Consistency requires me to dissent as to the colored pictures being admitted in evidence. I think that permitting their admission over strong defense objection was error. I must concede that the trial court at the time of trial did’ not have our decision in State v. Poe,1 before him, or the dissent therein, — which represented *218conflicting philosophies as to admissibility of such evidence. I thought the colored pictures in the Poe case to have been so. shocking and inflammatory as to offend-against the American tradition relating to fair trials. To be consistent I must dissent here, where I concurred there, for the very simple reason that personally J think the pictures here to be more gruesome and repulsive than those in the Poe case.
Someone may suggest that there is a difference here where defendant was convicted of manslaughter, which does not involve shooting or hanging, whereas in the Poe case the defendant faced death., There can be no logic in urging that such circumstances, i. e., degree of punishment, has any relation to the rules on admissibility of evidence, — and both cases are subject to the same rule.
In saying this I do not contend that colored pictures per se are inadmissible in evidence, but I do say that colored pictures, in particular cases, can portray scenes in an atmosphere and setting that do not reflect true reality, — being much more the vehicle of deception than the black and white ones. I am sure that if the murdered woman in this case had been a colored woman, a colored picture, would not have pointed up such gruesomeness. Also, had ten cameramen simultaneously taken pictures of this woman, five would get a gambler ten if it could be demonstrated that all the pictures taken had the same tint, color and hue..
Someone might suggest there was a difference in the Poe case, since the person taking the picture took it after a third person had cut half of the deceased’s head off after the homicide, whereas in the instant case the picture was taken after death but before anybody fooled around with the torso. The distinction is quite fatuous, since the Poe case went off on' the ground of inadmissibility because of1 gruesomeness, and the same logic applies here, where, in my opinion the gruesomeness grew some in the instant case.
Mr. Chief Justice Crockett’s concurrence here seems to be an inconsistent departure from his concurrence in State v. Poe. I would invite those of the majority to include the picture in the decision, for publication, in color, in the Pacific Reporter.
No matter how we feel about, this case, in fairness the man should have another trial sans colored stereoscope.

. 21 Utah 2d 113, 441 P.2d 542. June 4, 1968.