For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 37
Using Science to Challenge
GRUESOME Evidence
Jules Epstein and Suzanne Mannes
D
efense lawyers consistently seek to exclude
gruesome evidence, recognizing that in
most cases it has little probative value but
has the potential to overwhelm and inflame. Yet
such legal challenges all too often fail, as judges
find precedent supporting their discretionary judgments or simply eyeball the evidence and conclude
it to be non-inflammatory. It is time for science to
be deployed to inform Rule 403 determinations of
"unfair prejudice."
When confronted with "gruesome" evidence,
often autopsy photos or images of severe injuries,
judges must assess whether there is a risk of unfair
prejudice or misleading the jury and then, if the
risk is present, judges "may" exclude the proof.1
Yet there is no court-dictated workable metric
for assessing when either risk is present beyond
boilerplate terminology, such as whether the
"[e]vidence . . . makes a conviction more likely
because it provokes an emotional response in the
jury or otherwise tends to affect adversely the jury's
attitude toward the defendant wholly apart from
its judgment as to his guilt or innocence of the
crime charged."2 The standard is akin to that used
to describe when material is obscene -- an "I know
it when I see it" approach to decision-making.3
This approach begets arbitrariness. That this
is so may be seen by contrasting claims of unfair
prejudice in criminal and civil cases (a first step
for criminal defense lawyers challenging use of
gruesome evidence). The default in criminal cases
seems to be that of admissibility, demonstrated
in the extreme in the 2015 Aurora, Colo., movie
theater shooting trial. There, 226 prosecution
witnesses were called over 34 days where the only
disputed issue was sanity,4 and testimony included
Vol. 1, Issue 3 | For The Defense
37
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016
Contents
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 1
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 2
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - Contents
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 4
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 5
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 6
For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 7
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