FRANKLIN — Photos of the body of hit-and-run victim Dakota Heinaman are being excluded from evidence at the criminal trial of his alleged killer, Paul Morrisroe.
In an opinion filed last Friday in McKean County Court, President Judge John Pavlock granted a defense motion to exclude 61 photos from evidence in the case. The photos, according to defense attorney Robert Kinnear, were of Heinaman’s body at the scene of the crash.
A total of 600 photos had been moved for admission by the prosecution. The defense argued that since they were not denying the fact that Heinaman had been killed in a collision with Morrisroe’s truck, the need for the prosecution to introduce the photos into evidence was “minimal.”
“No specific reference was made to any particular photo, such as what it purported to depict and why the Commonwealth was requesting that that particular photo was relevant and admissible,” read Pavlock’s opinion.
In a brief filed Friday, District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg Shaffer told Pavlock the photos were “relevant to the case and necessary to assist the jury, especially one not familiar with the area in which death occurred.” Pavlock said Shaffer did not, however, reference any specific photo or what admitting a photo would demonstrate to the jury.
The judge added that the district attorney’s office “has made insufficient showing of the evidentiary need for any of the disputed photos.” He continued, saying it appeared that the district attorney didn’t go back and review the photos, but instead “asked the court to view all of them and determine, for the Commonwealth, if they had any evidentiary value.”
Therefore, Pavlock said he would exclude all 61 “until and if the Commonwealth provides sufficient and specific evidentiary basis and need for any given photo (and not ask that they be admitted as a group or make general arguments regarding all of them),” the opinion read.
Should the Commonwealth request to admit the photos again, the judge said they must make sure “only the necessary number of photographs are being requested to be admitted,” and exclude any photos similar or identical to others.
