Computer Takes Jurors To Scene Of Crime -- Animation Used To Convict Man Of Killing His Wife

BELLEVUE - When Whatcom County Prosecutor Dave McEachran wanted jurors to visualize a murder scene in the woods he called an unusual witness - computer-generated animation.

McEachran introduced as evidence a 10-second video that recreated the crime scene using computer-created figures and three-dimensional illustrative software.

The video helped convict a former Bremerton insurance agent of first-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife while on a hunting trip near Acme, about 80 miles north of Seattle.

"We thought it really graphically presented how this crime really occurred," McEachran said.

The computer animation was created by The Center for Multimedia, a year-old Bellevue company that helps clients use sound, text, still images, graphics, animation and full-motion video to convey information.

The June trial of Bruce Mulligan in Whatcom County Superior Court was the first time computer-generated animation was allowed as evidence in a criminal case in Washington state, prosecutors say. Computer animation was first used in a criminal case in the 1992 Marin County, Calif., trial of San Francisco porn king Jim Mitchell, who was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of his brother.

In civil cases, 3-D computer animation has been used to recreate situations, such as airplane accidents, that are impractical to duplicate in real life.

"3-D computer animation has actually been around for a little bit in the legal community. It's just that the work stations and software and skills weren't as widely available, and so it was a fairly pricey thing. You really only saw it in high-end civil cases where there was a lot of money to be made and they could afford some animation," said Patrick Boyd, a partner and production manager at The Center for Multimedia.

"What has happened is that as technology has evolved and some of the software manufacturers started paying more attention to the animation market, the price has come down. Now you're able to offer computer-based animations for a much lower price and it becomes more available for a criminal case - specifically on the prosecution side where taxpayer money is funding this thing," Boyd said.

Jeff Laneville, 3-D animator for the center, estimates he spent 100 hours creating the video in the Mulligan case, based on data from a Washington State Patrol investigator's survey map of the heavily wooded crime scene.

The map included the slope of the terrain and the location of all the trees and fallen logs. Combined with autopsy and ballistics results and other data, it was shown that the bullet that killed Mulligan's wife was fired from about 6 feet away and entered her body a few degrees above horizontal.

The video - with the bodies and logs represented by a collection of computer-generated cylinders, spheres and other shapes - helped jurors visualize the shooting.

"We were able to show both the judge and the jury that this is a fact-based animation as opposed to just some artist's rendition of what happened," Boyd said.

McEachran used the computer animation to counter defense plans to introduce its own animation at trial.

The defense claimed Mulligan's wife was killed when she slipped on a log and her rifle accidentally discharged. It hired an animator - the same one used at the Mitchell trial - to produce a computer animation of this scenario, but the judge wouldn't allow it into evidence because it was not supported by facts.

McEachran said the $3,000 or so Whatcom County paid for its animation was taxpayer money well-spent.

"Ordinarily, in a trial we're expressing ideas in words. I think it's important to express them in pictures also," he said.

Boyd described multimedia it as an emerging high-tech tool attorneys can use to help prove their case.

"As an attorney you've got to not only communicate your ideas to the jury but you've also got to get them to retain it so that at the end of a six-week trial, when they're locked away in a little room, they remember your stuff and don't remember the other guy's stuff," Boyd said. "What better way to do that than to use something that's visually rich and something that they're used to."