For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - 42
party tell its story in the manner it prefers" to
"do you really need that to tell a rich story and
make your case?" And where it truly is needed,
care should be taken in jury selection to assess
which prospective jurors might be overwhelmed
by such proof, and in trial presentation to minimize exposure.
The need for this shift in approach is not a mere
academic conjecture. It is substantial enough that
in the Woodard case involving 13 autopsy photos,
Pennsylvania's chief justice wrote a dissent in which
he called for greater judicial scrutiny and more
exclusion of gruesome evidence. Surveying some
of the scientific research, Chief Justice Thomas
Saylor wrote that "appellate courts should impose
some constraints upon the introduction of graphic
photographs into the courtroom. ..." He went on
to say that the medical examiner's detailed verbal
depiction of the injuries was more than sufficient.
He concluded:
[C]olor photographs of a nude, battered,
open-eyed, deceased child on a slab, encompassing full body portraits and facial close-ups, should
be regarded as inflammatory (or likely to evoke
strong emotional reactions, including generating
anger). Such graphic, visceral portrayals of a dead
child, in my view, create an unacceptable risk of
influencing jurors to reach conclusions based on
factors other than a strict application of the law
to the facts.30
Chief Justice Saylor's dissent is both an invitation to and a modest blueprint for a new litigation strategy. And there are strong responses to
the likely prosecution (or judicial) rejoinder that
trials will become sterile recounting of fact, or
that juries will leave the courtroom asking, "Why
wasn't there more proof?" Plenty of emotion will
remain in the drama of the courtroom, and skilled
litigators have or can hone the art of keeping a
trial interesting and bringing a rich, textured,
and comprehensible story to jurors. But this can
be done without gruesome evidence, and should
be achieved with a better metric than "I know it
when I see it."
© 2015, Jules Epstein and Suzanne Mannes.
All rights reserved.
42
For The Defense | Vol. 1, Issue 3
© 2016, National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers. Reprinted with permission.
Notes
See, e.g., FED. R. EVID. 403 ("The court may exclude
relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the
following: unfair prejudice [or] misleading the jury.
2. United States v. Watson, 766 F.3d 1219,1242,2014
U.S. App. LEXIS 17539, *59 (10th Cir.2014) (internal
quotation and citation omitted).
3. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197, 84 S. Ct.
1676,1683 (1964), Stewart, J" concurring ("I shall
not today attempt further to define the kinds of
material I understand to be embraced within that
shorthand description; and perhaps I could never
succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when
I see it[.]").
4. Aurora theater shooting trial: By the numbers,
NBC News 3:27 p.m. MDT July 15, 2015, http://
www.9news.com/story/news/local/aurora-theater-trial/2015/07/15/auroratheater-shooting-numbers-stats/30206423/ (last visited 11/20/15).
5. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/movie-theater-shooting/7-most-dramatic-moments-in-theatershooting-casevideos-from-the-trial-of-james-holmes
(last visited 11/20/15).
6. Commonwealth v. Woodard, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2786,
*29 (Pa. Dec. 3, 2015).
7. Rubert-Torres ex rel. Cintron-Rupert v. Hospital San
Pablo, Inc., 205 F.3d 472,478 (1 st Cir. 2000) (internal
quotations and citation omitted). See generally
Comment: Does Plaintiff Exclusion Have a Role to
Play in Twenty-First Century Negligence Litigation?
23 BUFF. PUB. INTEREST L.J. 89 (2004/2005).
8. Commonwealth v. Parker, 2012 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec.
LEXIS 211, *26 (Pa. County Ct. 2012).
9. Stanley Schachter & Jerome E. Singer, Cognitive,
Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional
State, 69 PSYCHOL. REV. 379-399 (1962). According
to this theory, the specific emotion that people
experience (e.g., anger or excitement) when they
detect physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart
rate) depends on the cognitive label they attach to
it (e.g., Did I just view pictures of a mutilated corpse
or am I about to ride a roller coaster?).
10. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI,
is a neuro-imaging technique that, by measuring
differences in blood flow to different brain regions,
allows researchers to identify which parts of the
brain are engaged during various activities.
11. Beatrice H. Capestany & Lasana T. Harris, Disgust
and Biological Descriptions Bias Logical Reasoning
During Legal Decision-Making, 9 SOCIAL
NEUROSCIENCE 265277 (2014).
1.
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/aurora-theater-trial/2015/07/15/auroratheater-shooting-numbers-stats/30206423/
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/aurora-theater-trial/2015/07/15/auroratheater-shooting-numbers-stats/30206423/
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/movie-theater-shooting/7-most-dramatic-moments-in-theater-shooting-case-videos-from-the-trial-of-james-holmes
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016
Contents
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For the Defense - Volume 1, Issue 3 - 2016 - Contents
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