I cannot understand why, a piece of american history cannot be in a public place. Lynching use to be a very public thing. How can we ever overcome the past if the future is to be limited, or contained to a very small tiny picture. We cannot continue to hide, and run from the past, as it is there for life.
To say that the jury may see it and be swayed in their decision is just not acceptable to me and I do not buy it,personally. Over the years, we have become desensitized to things such as murder, horrible things on the news, such as dead bodies laying in the streets. Blood and gore among many other things, yet juries still are competent to render verdicts. However, when the law is mixed in, then it becomes a little iffy: State v. Thompson, the court stated that: Photographs of homicide victims are admissible at trial even if they are "gory, gruesome, horrible or revolting so long as they are used by a witness to illustrate his testimony and so long as an excessive number of photographs are not used solely to arouse the passions of the jury."
In fact it could be argued that the picture in the lobby may and can in flame the minds of the jury, by unnecessarily exhibiting a gory object. Under FRE 403, federal rules of evidence, the judge could rule that the picture could have caused a juries vote to be swayed.
I guess, if it is where a jury will see this picture and there is a murder trial going on, it is possible that after a verdict of guilty, it could be argued that the jury was prejudiced and thus could result in overturning a verdict on a technicality. Now, I know that many on this list care a great deal about crime, but to have a murder go or be set free, is just not worth it.
Maybe the picture could be moved in a location away from the juries view
STRANGE FRUIT
Lewis Allen / Billy Holiday
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
Vanessa Freeman
Hawthorne
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