disagreeing with the “state’s position ... that all of the photographs were needed in order to prove the corpus delicti” and remarking that “the state could have shown the angle and entry of the bullet wound without the full-color, close-up view of the decomposed, maggot-infested skull”
How later courts described this case
- disagreeing with the “state’s position ... that all of the photographs were needed in order to prove the corpus delicti” and remarking that “the state could have shown the angle and entry of the bullet wound without the full-color, close-up view of the decomposed, maggot-infested skull”
- finding that the subject photographs depicting a “decomposed, maggot-infested skull” were “gruesome and lack[ed] any evidentiary purpose”
- finding that gruesome photographs of a maggot-infested body were "devoid of any evidentiary purpose"
- stating the "rule set out in Keys was recently modified [in Mack] to include unwritten verbal admissions made to any lay witness"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Today the Court plows new ground by reversing a case on the basis of gruesome photographs. Never before have we reversed a case because photographs were too gruesome. We have always held that the admission of photographs is within the sound discretion of the trial court. We did not reverse on this issue, even when we found that a photograph of the deceased taken as he lay on the ground after being killed by the appellant was not relevant, of no value to the jury, and should not have been admitted into evidence. Coleman v. State, 67 So.2d 304 (Miss. 1953). See also, West v. State, 67 So.2d 366 , 371 (Miss. 1953). Therefore, I would affirm the conviction and sentence of the defendant, even though the photographs are gruesome and depict a graphic description of what he caused.
ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., joins in this dissent.