Kerrick Trial: Attorneys Argue Showing Photos of Ferrell’s Body
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CHARLOTTE, NC — Should jurors see repeated photos of Jonathan Ferrell’s body at the shooting scene where Officer Wes Kerrick shot him? It’s a question attorneys continue to argue each time more pictures come up in the high-profile case in which the officer faces a voluntary manslaughter charge.
Sympathy is the word Officer Kerrick’s defense attorney Michael Greene repeats in an effort to stop prosecutors from showing photos of Ferrell’s body.
“The state is once again offering basically the same photo at a different angle,” Greene told the judge. “Again, to pull heart strings from the jury to get emotion, to get emotional, to get the family to react as well, which the jury is now going to see.”
Prosecutor Adren Harris argued, “The placement of these casings is what’s important in relation to the actual body itself.”
He insist they need to use the photos to show the evidence at the scene. Defense attorneys have objected three times to the photos in the first two days of testimony.
Jurors had to leave while prosecutors described the unique evidence in each one.
“There’s a lot of strategy going on on both sides with these pictures,” said WCCB Charlotte Legal Contributor John Snyder.
Snyder explained two reasons the defense is objecting to the photos:
“One is their stated reason in court. And, look, there’s better ways to embody the evidence that the state’s trying to put forward. They don’t have to use these grotesque pictures. The second issue is for appeal.”
Every objection, Officer Kerrick’s attorneys cited a case in which the court granted a mistrial for the repetitive use of photos to invoke emotion in jurors.
So far the judge has allowed prosecutors to show most of the photos. He denied one for repetitiveness. He asked prosecutors to cover Ferrell’s body in another. He is still waiting to rule on a photo that shows Ferrell after detectives turned his body.
