Defendant Marks appeals her conviction of the offense of volun
1. The victim was defendant’s husband. Defendant relied upon a justification defense, and presented evidence that she had returned home one evening to find her husband intoxicated, belligerent, and argumentative. When defendant attempted to leave with the children, the husband removed them from her vehicle and took them into the house. Defendant followed them into the house and tried to get the younger child, a 13-month-old baby, from her husband. Every time defendant approached her husband, he would squeeze the baby, causing the child to scream. Defendant testified that she was concerned that her husband would kill the baby. The victim was killed by a gun shot wound to the head.
Defendant enumerates as error the trial court’s refusal to permit her to introduce evidence concerning prior specific acts of violence committed by the victim against the family dog. A long-standing rule excluding evidence of a prior violent act by a victim against a third party was abandoned in
Chandler v. State,
Defendant made an offer of proof relating two incidents in which a neighbor observed the husband extend particularly brutal treatment to the dog, including dragging and kicking the animal, for no substantial reason. It is clear from the colloquy at trial, that the trial court’s analysis focused upon questioning the relevance of the evidence since the neighbor had not related these incidents to defendant. However, as pointed out by Justice Weltner, in Divisions (3) (b) (ii) and (3) (c) of the Lolley special concurrence, even where the defendant has no prior knowledge of -the decedent, evidence of his violent nature through specific acts of violence against third persons is relevant to establishing the credibility of the account of an incident related by a defendant. The trial court was not correct in concluding that defendant’s lack of knowledge of the previous incidents precluded the introduction of the evidence at issue.
Since the defendant did present a justification defense and did provide the appropriate notice to the State, the remaining issue is whether the rule adopted in
Chandler
is applicable when the victim’s prior act of violence is directed toward a family pet rather than a person. With all due deference to the many animal rights advocates who would argue that a man’s behavior towards his dog is a remarkably adept indicator of his character, we decline to extend the holding
However, even if the victim’s behavior toward the dog is assumed to be illustrative of issues on trial, we find no harm in the exclusion of that evidence since it was, at most, cumulative of defendant’s evidence showing the victim’s violent behavior toward defendant and her children. It is highly unlikely that such evidence would have altered the verdict.
Johnson v. State,
2. A
Jackson-Denno
hearing was held to determine the admissibility of a custodial statement made by defendant. See
Jackson v. Denno,
3. Defendant’s next enumeration of error complains of the admission into evidence of five photographs and a videotape of the victim’s body. Even if somewhat repetitive, there was no error in the admission of this evidence which was relevant to the issues at trial.
Mooney v. State,
4. Defendant also contends that the trial court erred in permitting certain items to be sent out to the jurors for their use during deliberations. Insofar as defendant complains that the indictment should not have been sent out • since it included the names of the grand jurors, we find that this contention has been previously rejected in
Byrd v. State,
Additionally, defendant argues that a gun and photographs of the body should not have been sent out since they were unnecessarily duplicative and prejudicial. This issue has already been addressed as to the photographs in Division 3 and the same reasoning is applicable to admission of the gun. This enumeration of error is without merit.
5. Finally, defendant contends that the trial court erred in over
Judgment affirmed.