Mutcherson v. State, 72074
| Decision Date | 15 May 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 72074,72074 |
| Citation | 345 S.E.2d 661,179 Ga.App. 114 |
| Parties | MUTCHERSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Michael G. Schiavone, Savannah, for appellant.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., Dist. Atty., Virginia A. Erskine, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Defendant was convicted by a jury of burglary (OCGA § 16-7-1) and the aggravated sodomy (OCGA § 16-6-2) and rape (OCGA § 16-6-1) of his sister.
The sole enumeration of error is the admission into evidence, over a chain of custody objection, of slides of semen samples taken from the victim's vagina.
At trial a physician testified that he made the slides while examining the victim, marked them, and placed them in a cardboard slide carrier which he then sealed with tape and wrote on. He identified his markings at trial. A police detective testified that she removed a police department sealed manila envelope containing the carrier and slides from the police department refrigerator and delivered it to the crime lab's microanalyst. The microanalyst testified that the envelope he received from her had been marked with the victim's name and sealed with staples. He stated that he opened the outer envelope, breaking the seal, and found inside the cardboard slide carrier which had also been sealed on four sides with tape; the seal of tape appeared to be intact. He testified that there was no indication the slides or carrier had been altered or tampered with. He then resealed it and resealed it again after testing it. At trial he recognized his sealing.
Although the state failed to present the testimony of the police officer who took the slides from the physician and delivered them to the police department refrigerator, as he was no longer in the police department and could not be located, the absence of his testimony in explaining his role in the chain of custody does not render the evidence inadmissible. The testimony of the doctor and the microanalyst was a sufficient substitute because their combined testimony showed that the seal put on by the doctor appeared unchanged when the container reached the examiner. " ...
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Smith v. City of East Point
...the urine sample taken from Smith was the sample which was tested and that there was no tampering or substitution. Mutcherson v. State, 179 Ga.App. 114, 345 S.E.2d 661. It follows that the results of the urinalysis were admitted properly. Any doubt about the identity or purity of the sample......
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Johnson v. State
...in the police department refrigerator prior to delivery to the State Crime Lab render this evidence inadmissible. Mutcherson v. State, 179 Ga.App. 114, 345 S.E.2d 661 (1986). "[W]hen a blood sample is routinely handled and nothing in the record raises a suspicion that the blood tested was o......
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Bowers v. State
...raises a suspicion of tampering. It was proper to admit the evidence and let what doubt remains go to its weight. Mutcherson v. State, 179 Ga.App. 114, 345 S.E.2d 661; Shrader v. State, 159 Ga.App. 522, 524(2), 284 S.E.2d Judgment affirmed. CARLEY, C.J., and SOGNIER, J., concur. ...
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Brinson v. State
...the [samples] into evidence. [Cit.]" Langham v. State, 196 Ga.App. 71, 72(1), 395 S.E.2d 345 (1990). See also Mutcherson v. State, 179 Ga.App. 114, 345 S.E.2d 661 (1986). 3. Appellant was charged with the burglary of a motel room. At the close of the State's evidence, he moved for a directe......