The Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division, rejected an appeal from a Steuben County man convicted of killing his girlfriend on Thanksgiving Day 2011. 57-year-old Joseph Dixon was convicted in 2014 of killing Delores Wagner. The prosecution at trial alleged that on Nov. 22, 2011 or early in the morning Nov. 23, 2011, Dixon savagely beat Warner in her Gibson home, leaving her dead with 20 broken ribs and a broken neck (source Corning Leader). Dixon was sentenced to serve twenty-five years. He is currently incarcerated in Attica Correctional facility. According to court documents, Dixon's attorney's maintained:
Defendant contends that (Steuben County) Court abused its discretion
in allowing testimony about prior acts of domestic violence that defendant
committed against the victim. The Higher court said "we reject that contention." The three-page ruling also said - We reject defendant’s
contention that the court abused its discretion in permitting the jury to view
“horrifying and grisly”photographs of the victim’s dead body. “ ‘[P]hotographs
are admissible if they tend to prove or disprove a disputed or material issue .
. . [and] should be excluded only if [their] sole purpose is to arouse the
emotions of the jury and to prejudice the defendant’ ” (People v Smalls, 70
AD3d 1328, 1330 [4th Dept 2010], lv denied 14 NY3d 844 [2010], reconsideration
denied 15 NY3d 778 [2010], quoting People v Wood, 79 NY2d 958, 960 [1992]). We
note that the People sought to introduce 37 photographs of the victim’s body,
each purportedly depicting a separate injury. Defendant objected to all of them.
The court reviewed the photographs, precluded two of them as redundant, and
allowed the People to introduce the remaining 35 photographs. On appeal,
defendant challenges the admission in evidence of only five of those
photographs, effectively conceding that the rest were properly admitted. He
does not contend, however, that the challenged photographs are any more
“horrifying and grisly” than the properly admitted ones. To the contrary, he
contends that they are redundant. Because the jury was allowed to view 30
images of the victim’s corpse, defendant cannot be said to have suffered
prejudice due to the admission of five additional, similar images. We thus conclude
that the admission of those five photographs was not an abuse of discretion
(see People v White, 153 D3d 1565, 1566
[4th Dept 2017], lv denied.
The earliest release date for Dixon is April 25, 2033.
