Anne Reed provides yet another stunning post at Deliberations, this time addressing the  impact of gruesome crime photographs on the likelihood of conviction.

“Jurors presented with gruesome evidence, such as descriptions or images of torture and mutilation, are up to five times more likely to convict a defendant than jurors not privy to such evidence,” a recent press release about his work says.

While it comes as no surprise that photos of the body inflame a juror’s passion, the efforts to keep these horrific photographs from the eyes of the jury almost always fall on deaf ears.  It may because they similarly inflame the judge (who’s usually only human), or it may be the good faith belief that the defendant should not be allowed to insulate himself from the evidence of the crime by precluding the jury from seeing what truly happened.

The problem, of course, is that these gruesome photographs and vivid descriptions of horrible images have nothing to do with who committed the crime.  There is seldom any argument that the crime occurred, or that it was indeed horrific.  Rather, the issue is whether the defendant is the person who committed this terrible crime.

The line between the issues gets blurred to the point that the jury, angered beyond reason by the nature of the terrible deed and feeling the normal human compulsion to make someone pay for this crime, takes it out on the defendant.  After all, he is the one the police and the prosecutor say did it.  He is the only one they can take it out on.  And somebody has to pay.

While we have long been constrained to argue the obvious without anything beyond anecdotal support, Anne now brings us a study with some hard data to show that the impact of showing a jury these gruesome photos is to increase the possibility of a wrongful conviction fivefold.  Since the photographs provide no material evidence that the defendant was the perpetrator of the crime, but will nonetheless increase the likelihood of conviction so substantially, it makes clear that the use of these pictures serves to substantially improve the chances of conviction for reasons entirely unrelated to evidence that the defendant committed the crime.

Maybe, particularly in light of the ongoing revelations about the wrongful convictions of innocents as shown by subsequent DNA testing, just maybe a court will consider the possibility that putting horrible photographs of an undisputed issue in front of a jury is wrong.  Kudos to Anne for another incredibly helpful find.