Roy Lujason Turner v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 1866151

Roy Lujason Turner was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder, robbery, and two counts of using a firearm in commission of a felony arising from a July 16, 2015 shooting that killed Dajuan Glover.
Forensic evidence showed Glover was shot many times and bullets/casings indicated three different handguns; witnesses identified Turner and two co-defendants as shooters.
Investigators recovered text messages and a downloaded photograph from co-defendant Joshua Wood’s phone; one message referenced "13 news," and Wood saved a news-site photograph of Turner.
At trial the Commonwealth used a poster board summarizing Wood’s phone data that included the news-site photograph of Turner; Turner objected that the photograph was a prejudicial mug shot.
The trial court admitted the photograph for use against Wood, over Turner’s objection, and gave a limiting instruction that the photograph was not to be considered against Turner.
On appeal Turner argued admission of the photograph was an abuse of discretion because it was a mug shot with high prejudicial effect; the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of photograph (mug shot rule)	Commonwealth: photo was relevant evidence recovered from co-defendant’s phone and admissible against Wood	Turner: photograph was a mug shot; its prejudicial effect outweighed probative value and it should have been excluded	Photo was not a mug shot under Virginia precedents and trial court did not abuse discretion in admitting it; limiting instruction cured any potential prejudice
Whether limiting instruction sufficed to prevent prejudice	Commonwealth: limiting instruction confined use to Wood and juries are presumed to follow instructions	Turner: jurors could infer prior arrests from photo despite instruction	Court presumed jury followed instruction and Turner failed to show a manifest probability of prejudice; conviction affirmed

Midkiff v. Commonwealth, 280 Va. 216 (evidentiary admissibility reviewed for abuse of discretion)
Gray v. Commonwealth, 233 Va. 313 (admission of photographs rests in trial court's discretion)
Johnson v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. App. 447 (sets out federal Harrington test for mug shots admissibility)
United States v. Harrington, 490 F.2d 487 (2d Cir.) (three-part test limiting use of mug shots)
Irving v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 414 (examples of traditional police "mug shot" characteristics)
LeVasseur v. Commonwealth, 225 Va. 564 (presumption that juries follow cautionary instructions)