There is an interesting debate going on in a Massachusetts courtroom over prejudicial evidence in a murder trial. No, it is not pictures of the victims or crime scene. It is the appearance of the defendant himself. You see, Caius Veiovis, 33, had himself implanted with horns and had a satanic tattoo put on his face. Now this defense counsel is understandably concerned that the jury will recoil at the very sight of him. However, there is only so much that a court can do to protect a defendant against his own appearances, particularly when he spent considerable time and money to look satanic.
Veiovis is accused of participating in the kidnapping, torture, and murder of three men: David Glasser, Edward Frampton and Robert Chadwell (shown right). Adam Hall, 37, a member of the Hell’s Angels, was convicted in February of first-degree murder and kidnapping, and sentenced to three consecutive life terms, plus 42 years. That should cover any longevity issues in his family.
Veiovis allegedly helped Hall kill Glasser because he was expected to testify against Hall. The other men were killed to allegedly eliminate witnesses to the Glasser killing. A third co-conspirator has also been convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
Veiovis likely has no good option since, given the gruesome murders, any plea would leave him in prison for life regardless of the deal. He might have concluded that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by throwing himself on the mercy of the jurors.
That takes us back to Veiovis’ appearance. The court has struggled how to address the initial shock at seeing Veiovis. The judge understandably was reluctant to have a picture of Veiovis shown throughout voir dire since that could raise other prejudicial questions. However, this issue was raised by the defense in how to avoid a shock to the jury members. Moreover, jurors are ordinarily allowed to see the demeanor of the accused not only in testifying but in response to testimony as part of their deliberations.
Veiovis has two rows of bumps on his forehead, a ‘666’ tattoo between them, and other facial and neck tattoos. He even surgically altered the shape of his ears to make them elf-like.
Defense lawyer James Reardon Jr. has quite a challenge there but I cannot see any way that the court will be able to protect Veiovis from his chosen appearance. He went through a great deal of trouble to look Satanic and he succeeded. It is just not the best look when you are trying to establish a presumption of innocence.
Source: Berkshire Eagle and originally found on ABA Journal
Jurors would be prejudiced by his appearance for good reason.
The OPTION of corruption by judges should be taken away from judges.
Justice NEEDS to be blind in order to SEE everything.
The presumption is that judges can think and jurors can’t.
The law says “jury of his peers.”
A judge is not a peer.
A judge is not smarter than the law.
A judge is not smarter than a juror.
A judge’s intellect is not on trial.
Admissibility is for the jury to decide.
Manipulation of evidence by a judge, related to admissibility, is bias and
corruption not allowed by the prosecution or defense. Only the judge is allowed
to be corrupt.
Admissibility consideration only exists to corruptly and insidiously provide
control to the “powers that be,” even in the face of law which empowers only
the jury to make the decision.
No evidence should ever be restricted. Whatever the prosecution and defense
want to present must be admitted.
In Fergusson, MO, the race industry did not want to admit the video evidence of
assault and robbery in the convenience store; an event that affected the
perpetrator then and affected him later when he encountered the police officer.
Evidence that Obama did not have two citizen-parents and is not eligible for the office has not been admitted because of the inaction of the only party with standing, ex-Speaker Pelosi (res ipsa loquitor) and because the judicial branch has declared, not only the evidence but the entire case is inadmissible.
Corruption at its finest.
Squeeky’s limerick made me smile, and Groty’s comment made laugh inappropriately! I bet the propositions are already rolling in, Groty — don’t forget the women of Scandinavia, who keep death row tourism alive!
It’s so humanly contradictory that this man would disfigure himself to indicate he gladly does evil and then plead ‘Not guilty, Your Honor’ at his trial. Lucifer, the great trickster, may be his intent. Maybe he doesn’t really care about the outcome. (Surely his lawyer would have already tried to get him to see a shrink who would declare him incompetent.. must not have worked out.)
Darren, Would that not also be “testimony”?
Though I always believed that “testimony” was made up of words, the ruling in the case last year indicated that evidence on the person’s body was testimony too.
From the trial transcript:
(BENCH CONFERENCE BEGINS)
Defense Counsel: Your Honor, I would like to make a record, I plan to call upon defendant not to testify but to remove his shirt and tie and jacket to show the bullet wound scars on his body. I believe that this will impeach Seargent’s testimony as to the entry and exit wounds because the scars speak for themselves and are obvious to any layperson as to the location of they entered the body high and left the back low. I realize this is a somewhat dramatic thing to do. I do not believe this is a violation of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right. I believe he is still not testifying by doing so and that the prosecution has adequate opportunity to cross examine this evidence by simply also pointing
to the body of the person. By analogy the defendant has already stood up. On the other hand I realize that the prosecutor probably objects to this No. 1;
and No. 2, if the Court does not sustain or overrules my motion to do this, then I would in the alternative wish to make an Offer of Proof to the jury or to the Court when the jury is not in the presence.
Prosecutor: And Your Honor, I object to this. If the defendant is going to make this demonstrative exhibit of his body, he’s testifying, and I do not have any way of cross examining about this, plus the defendant is not offering any medical
testimony about the trajectory of the bullets or anyting like that, so all we would be doing would be speculating about entry and exit wounds, and I believe that would be misleading to the jury, and I would object to any use of these wounds without me being able to cross examine the defendant.
Defense Counsel: My response is I do not think that expert and medical testimony is necessary to make a scar readily visible to a juror. I think out
of their ordinary life experience they can see a scar is up high in the chest and much lower in the back of the chest. That is not testimony, it is simply showing the presence of wounds on the defendant’s person. There’s ample evidence already in the record that the defendant was shot by Sergeant X and medevaced to the hospital, so this is not something that is speculative in any
way.
JUDGE: Even if the defendant does not say a word, I still believe such a
demonstration is testimonial in nature. I frankly don’t think it impeaches Sergeant X’s testimony for a couple of reasons. No. 1, he hasn’t disputed
the fact that the entry wounds on the front of defendant’s chest or body are higher than the exit wounds on the back. Secondly, that’s consistent with his testimony that the defendant, he believes, was starting to crouch down as he was drawing the gun or attempting to draw the gun out of his holster, so it really doesn’t impeach anything, but since I believe it to be testimonial in nature, even
though the defendant is not necessarily saying a word, I believe he’s going to have to take the witness stand and testify before he can do that, so
the request is denied, let’s put it that way.
Jack, I see your point but I wonder if the defense entered the wounds on the defendant’s chest as evidence wouldn’t it be outside the scope of testimony? I wonder if the value of the chest wounds should be evaluated by the trier of fact (jury) as to whether it is something to consider against the expert and officer’s testimony.
This thing is going to be a huge mess if the defendant decides to testify in his own behalf.
Squeeky, I know many decent people with values that are not Christian Judeo. Is God’s law written in Buddhists hearts too? The Buddhist Gods? So many Gods. You see everything good as Christlike, nothing wrong with that, but that is coming from a Christians orientation. I’m saying that here are other orientations that promote values.
I wonder if wearing some kind of hat and some makeup might address these concerns
John Oliver, I think Professor Turley would like to have it be more like a legal blog. However, I don’t think most of those leaving comments have any interest in discussing the application of law on the current event presented in the article. That’s probably why few in the legal profession decide to weigh in, and when they do, it’s usually not from a legal perspective.
@annie
Well then what set of values did you use? Did you tell your kids not to lie, steal, or disrespect you? Did you tell them to behave themselves when they got married, and not mess around on their mates? Did you tell them to be careful who they ran around with, because bad friends can get you in trouble? In other words, not to be tolerant. Did you tell them to work hard, and go to school???
Yes, Annie, I believe you probably did all the above things, which sound sooo Christian-y, and also sound sooo not Christian-y. The Bible says that God’s law are written in people’s hearts, and that is why non-believers also know the difference between right and wrong.
But I think the Left is busily trying to destroy the differences between right and wrong, and to destroy people’s belief systems, along with the confidence to tell right from wrong..
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Thanks Jack. I was beginning to wonder if this was still a Legal blog given recent commentary.
And to go full circle Squeeky, you said those on the left are without values, or anti values. You are wrong.
last year
John Oliver, I don’t think his peculiar appearance can be part of the Prosecutor’s evidence.
In a case I worked on last hear, the defense counsel wanted the defendant to remove his shirt to show the bullet wounds he received from the police officers who shot him. The prosecutor objected. The judge sustained that objection, ruling that doing so would be testimony.
While we have a right to face our accusers, the accusers don’t have a right to face the defendant. I would think any defendant can choose not to be seen by the court, so long as the defendant would stipulate to being the person accused by any witness.
Squeeky, I didn’t just “wing it” raising my own four children who turned out to be wonderful, kind successful people without religious values. I put a lot of love and work and VALUES into my parenting.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0814474268/?tag=stackoverfl08-20
It’s possible to raise children by good example without religion. To say that secular people have no values and cannot instill values in their children is fallacious.
@annie
Nice shuffle there, Annie! There is a difference between secular people with values, and people who are anti-values. The Left has been moving more and more towards the anti-value side, where there aren’t any of those hard and fast rules about behavior.
The whole “who are we to judge?” mantra means that if some guys walks another guy around on a dog leash, we aren’t supposed to call them freaks. No, we are supposed to pretend that is normal, and as long as it is between consenting adults, etc.etc.
As far as the picture of the two guys, whom I presume are gay, no I don’t think much of it. I think they are selfish twits. Those poor kids are going to grow up wondering where Mommy is. Much better to have a mom and a dad, than two mommies or two daddies. But once again, the anti-values crowd preaches otherwise.
You asked for my opinion about you having any values. My answer is that I think you are very short-sighted and think that people can just wing it without rules. I think that will end badly for the country.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Judge Julius Hoffman had them bound and gagged in his courtroom.
Nick – I remember some lawyers talking about keeping count of the reversible error in that Hoffman trial. They finally quit counting, it got too high.
BK, You are nothing if not consistent.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/20/the-values-of-the-christian-left/
The Values of the Christian Left.
Defendants have been removed from the courtroom for bad behavior and there don’t seem to be problems with the trial continuing without their presence. Keeping him in an anteroom shouldn’t be a problem.
Would it matter if his peculiar appearance was part of the prosecutions evidence?
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/100118_r19230_p646.jpg
How about this for family values?