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Parties Involved:
Clyde Lacy Rattler
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify the

Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made before the

bound volumes go to press. 

 United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 8, 2006 Decided February 6, 2007

No. 05-3103

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

CLYDE LACY RATTLER, A/K/A CLYDE LACY RATIER,

 A/K/A RUNABOUT,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 02cr00466-01)

Neil H. Jaffee, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued

the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

Stratton C. Strand, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Roy

W. McLeese III and Jeanne M. Hauch, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

USCA Case #05-3103 Document #1021332 Filed: 02/06/2007 Page 1 of 13
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Before: ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAMS,

Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: The question on appeal is whether

the district court erred in denying Clyde Lacy Rattler’s motion

to suppress identification evidence that was the product of

photographic and show-up identification procedures. Rattler

contends that because the repeated display of his photograph to

bank employees increased the danger of misidentification and he

stood out in the photo array and show-up, the district court

should have suppressed the out-of-court, as well as the tainted

in-court, identifications of him and that the erroneous admission

of this evidence was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

We conclude that, assuming without deciding that the

identification procedures were impermissibly suggestive, the

identifications were nonetheless sufficiently reliable to preclude

a very substantial likelihood of misidentification. The bank

employees gave detailed and accurate descriptions of the robber

prior to the objected-to identification procedures, and based on

one description, a security guard followed Rattler from one bank

to another bank whose “bait” money was found on his person

when he was arrested. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of

conviction. 

I.

Rattler was indicted and convicted of four counts of

violating 18 U.S.C. § 2133(a) for three bank robberies and an

attempted robbery that took place in June 2002. 

The first robbery occurred on June 4th at a branch of the

SunTrust Bank. Bank teller Mary Murray was confronted by a

man who threatened to blow up the bank and demanded “large

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bills.” Murray gave the robber over $3,000.00, and he left the

bank. She described the robber within an hour to a Federal

Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) agent as a black male with dark

skin, approximately 6' tall, weighing approximately 170 pounds,

of medium build with short black hair, a black beard with a

moustache, and wearing a dark suit jacket, dark shirt, dark pants,

and light-colored cowboy boots. Natasha Miller and Charles

Neill, two other bank employees, provided like descriptions of

the robber within an hour of the robbery. Within two or three

days, the FBI agent showed each of these employees

photographs of one man from a SunTrust surveillance tape and

asked whether they depicted “the person that robbed the bank.”

On June 21st, Murray saw the robber reenter the bank and when

she looked at him he left. 

The second robbery occurred on June 14th at another

branch of the SunTrust Bank. Bank teller Latosha Conley was

confronted by a man who said he wanted her to give him “large

bills” or he was going to blow up the bank. Conley gave him

approximately $1,900.00, and the man left the bank. Conley

provided a description of the robber to the FBI shortly after the

robbery that matched the descriptions given by the employees at

the other SunTrust branch: black male, approximately 6' 1" tall,

slender, medium-length hair with a little gray in need of a

haircut, with a moustache and a “straggly beard,” and wearing

a black blazer or jacket and black or beige striped shirt. Conley

also said the robber had dark eyes and was in his late forties.

Another bank employee, Stephanie Long, provided a similar

description of the robber. Within two or three days, the FBI

agent showed each of them separately photographs of one man

from the bank’s surveillance tapes recorded at the time of the

robbery and asked each whether they depicted “the person that

robbed the bank.” Around this time, Conley saw the robber

reenter the bank; when he asked her to wait on him she refused.

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The attempted robbery occurred on June 19th at a branch of

the Bank of America. A man told bank teller Vera Smith to give

him money or he would blow up the bank. Smith did not take

him seriously at first and told him to get away from her teller

window. When he did not leave, she left her station and told her

supervisor there was a man at her window who was demanding

money. At this point the man left and the supervisor pushed the

alarm. Smith provided a description of the robber within an

hour of the robbery that was essentially the same as those given

by the SunTrust Bank employees: black male with dark skin,

approximately 6' 1" tall, weighing approximately 170 pounds,

medium build, 40-45 years old with short black hair, a black

beard and a moustache, and wearing a dark suit with a dark shirt,

dark pants, and light-colored cowboy boots. Another bank

employee, Arlethia Graham, provided a similar description:

black male, 6' 2" or 6' 3" tall, slim build, in his forties, some

facial hair, along with “some bushy hair,” maybe with some

gray in it, wearing a dark suit. 

On June 21st, Smith saw the robber when he returned to the

Bank of America and she alerted a security guard. The security

guard followed the robber to a branch of the First Union Bank,

the scene of the third robbery. There, the robber demanded

money from bank teller Erika Garner and threatened to blow up

the bank if she did not give it to him. Garner gave the man

about $1,500.00, which included bank “bait” bills. Garner

described the robber, approximately twenty minutes later as a

black male, dark complexion, approximately 6' 1" to 6' 3" tall,

approximately 170 pounds, slim build, in his forties, medium

length black head hair with some gray, with a beard and a

moustache, and wearing a black suit, a black tee-shirt, with

black slacks and dirty-brown hiking boots. Garner also

identified Rattler in a show-up outside of the Bank of America

branch; Rattler stood between two other black males with facial

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hair. When Rattler left the First Union Bank, the Bank of

America security guard detained him until he was arrested by an

FBI agent. Upon searching Rattler’s person, the agent found the

“bait” money from the First Union robbery.

During the following two months, an FBI agent presented

the bank employees (other than the First Union employees) with

a photo-array consisting of six color photographs that had been

reproduced on a single sheet of paper. All of the bank

employees picked out Rattler’s photograph as depicting the

robber.

Prior to trial, Rattler filed a motion to suppress the

identifications made through the use of the show-up and photo

array. He argued that the identification procedures were

impermissibly suggestive because Rattler stood out from the

other men in the array and that it was unduly suggestive

repeatedly to show only Rattler’s photograph to the bank

employees, initially in bank surveillance tape photographs and

again in the photo array. The district court denied the motion to

suppress. Although finding that the photographs from the

surveillance tapes were suggestive and acknowledging that a

show-up is a suggestive procedure, the district court found that

the men in the photo array were sufficiently similar in

appearance, skin complexion, and hair such that Rattler did not

stand out, and that the manner of presenting the array was not

suggestive because there was no prompting by the FBI agent in

displaying the array. 

At trial, the four bank tellers who confronted the robber

(Murray, Conley, Smith, and Garner) and two other bank

employees (Miller and Long) testified, and all identified Rattler

as the bank robber. The jury found Rattler guilty as charged.

The district court sentenced Rattler to concurrent terms of 97

months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release on

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each count, and ordered him to pay a special assessment of

$400.00 and to make restitution of $5,530.00 to SunTrust Bank.

Rattler appeals.

II.

The long-established standard governing the admissibility

of identification evidence is “that of fairness as required by the

Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Manson v.

Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 113 (1977). A court must determine

first, whether the identification procedure “was impermissibly

suggestive,” United States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128, 1134

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (citing Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 197

(1972)), and if so, second, whether, under the totality of the

circumstances, the identification was sufficiently reliable to

preclude “a very substantial likelihood of irreparable

misidentification,” Manson, 432 U.S. at 116 (internal quotation

marks omitted). With respect to the second part of the test, the

Supreme Court has instructed that key factors include: 

the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at

the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention,

the accuracy of his prior description of the criminal,

the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation,

and the time between the crime and the confrontation.

Against these factors is to be weighed the corrupting

effect of the suggestive identification itself.

Id. at 114 (emphasis added). We review the district court’s legal

conclusions de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. See

United States v. Pindell, 336 F.3d 1049, 1052 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

As a threshold matter, the government maintains that Rattler

has waived any challenge to the in-court identifications by

failing to challenge those identifications in his motion to

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suppress. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 12(b)(3)(C), (e); United States

v. Sobin, 56 F.3d 1423, 1427 (D.C. Cir. 1995); cf. United States

v. Weathers, 186 F.3d 948, 957 (D.C. Cir. 1999). Rattler

responds that there has been no waiver because the claim was

implicit. 

In United States v. Lawson, 410 F.3d 735 (D.C. Cir.), cert.

denied, 126 S. Ct. 779 (2005), this court noted, citing United

States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 241 (1967), that “[i]f an out-ofcourt identification is held inadmissible, any subsequent in-court

identification by the same witness will be barred, unless the

prosecution can show an independent, untainted source of the incourt identification.” Lawson, 410 F.3d at 739 n.3. In other

words, as Rattler argued in moving to suppress, a challenge to

“the corrupting effect of the suggestive identification”

procedures, Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, implicitly challenges incourt identification evidence. Thus, if the district court erred in

denying Rattler’s motion to suppress the show-up and photo

array identifications, then, as the Supreme Court in Wade has

instructed, the “primary illegality” is established, and, absent

evidence showing an independent, untainted source for each

identification by a witness, the in-court identifications are the

product of “exploitation of that illegality [and not] . . . by means

sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.”

Wade, 388 U.S. at 241 (quoting JOHN M. MAGUIRE, EVIDENCE

OF GUILT 221 (1959)). 

Consistent with the purposes of Rule 12, see United States

v. Mitchell, 951 F.2d 1291, 1297 (D.C. Cir. 1991), Rattler’s

motion alerted the district court to legal issues before it. The

district court tentatively ruled that there was an independent

source for the identifications, but ultimately concluded that the

identification procedures did not warrant exclusion of the out-ofcourt identification evidence. Now in contending that the

district court erred in denying his motion to suppress, Rattler

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maintains that the identification procedures were impermissibly

suggestive, and thus increased the likelihood of misidentification

in violation of his due process rights. See Biggers, 409 U.S. at

198. As it turns out, we need not definitely resolve the Rule 12

waiver issue.

Rattler’s challenge is premised on the acknowledgment by

the Supreme Court in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377

(1968), that:

Even if the police subsequently follow the most correct

photographic identification procedures . . . there is

some danger that the witness may make an incorrect

identification. This danger will be increased if the

police display to the witness only the picture of a

single individual who generally resembles the person

he saw, or if they show him the pictures of several

persons among which the photograph of a single such

individual recurs or is in some way emphasized. . . .

Regardless of how the initial misidentification comes

about, the witness thereafter is apt to retain in his

memory the image of the photograph rather than of the

person actually seen, reducing the trustworthiness of

subsequent lineup or courtroom identification.

Id. at 383-84. Rattler makes three main arguments.

First, he emphasizes the fact that within days of each of the

bank robberies, the FBI agent showed bank employees

photographs from each bank’s surveillance tapes depicting him

and then asked each witness the leading question whether this

was the person who robbed the bank. As Rattler notes, the

Supreme Court has instructed that “identifications arising from

single-photograph displays may be viewed in general with

suspicion.” Manson, 432 U.S. at 116 (citing Simmons, 390 U.S.

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at 383). This court has concluded that such identifications are

“highly suggestive.” Mason v. United States, 414 F.2d 1176,

1182 (D.C. Cir. 1969). More recently, this court observed that

bank surveillance photographs showing only two individuals

suspected of robbing a bank were “an arguably suggestive

medium.” Lawson, 410 F.3d at 740. Thus Rattler maintains the

identification procedures used with respect to the surveillance

photographs unnecessarily suggested his guilt to the bank

employees.

Second, Rattler maintains, the suggestivity in showing only

his photograph to the bank employees was exacerbated by the

fact that the bank employees were shown a photo array in which

his photograph stood out. Only Rattler’s photograph

corresponded to the bank employees’ descriptions of the robber

as having “[l]ong,” “scraggly” facial hair and “bushy,”

“unke[m]pt,” “grown-out” head hair. He makes a similar

argument about the show-up: He was the only person having the

key physical characteristics that bank teller Garner identified.

As Rattler points out, this court has recognized that the

suggestivity of a photo array “depends in part upon the

relationship between the characteristics a witness is searching

for and their distribution in the staged array,” United States v.

Hinton, 631 F.2d 769, 782 n.42 (D.C. Cir. 1980), and that an

array is impermissibly suggestive where only the defendant’s

distinctive hair corresponds to the witness’s descriptions, United

States v. Sanders, 479 F.2d 1193, 1197 (D.C. Cir. 1973); see

also United States v. Eltayib, 88 F.3d 157, 166-67 (2d Cir.

1996); United States v. Gidley, 527 F.2d 1345, 1350-51 (5th Cir.

1976). A relatively small number of photographs in an array

heightens the need to examine the suggestivity of irregularities

between the subjects in the array. See United States v. Wiseman,

172 F.3d 1196, 1209-10 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v.

Sanchez, 24 F.3d 1259, 1263 (10th Cir. 1994).

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1

 The appendices to the guidelines cite materials for further

reading, including those that have criticized eyewitness identifications

where: (1) only a single suspect is shown and show-ups generally, see

Gary L. Wells et al., Eyewitness Identification Procedures:

Recommendations for Lineups and Photospreads, 22 LAW & HUM.

Third, Rattler points to the fact that only his photograph was

consecutively shown to the bank employees, thereby increasing

the danger of misidentification. As this court recognized in

United States v. (Jerome) Washington, 353 F.3d 42, 45 (D.C.

Cir. 2004), the use of consecutive identification procedures

“may be impermissibly suggestive where there is only one

‘repeat player.’” Id.; see also Foster v. California, 394 U.S.

440, 443 (1969); Sanders, 479 F.2d at 1197-98.

In 1999, the Justice Department published guidelines

developed by the Office of Justice Programs for refining

investigative practices dealing with eyewitness identifications.

EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE: A GUIDE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

(Nat’l Inst. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Dep’t of

Justice, Oct. 1999); see also EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE: A

TRAINER’S MANUAL FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT (Nat’l Inst. of

Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Sept.

2003) (together “guidelines”). Although not addressing every

identification procedure that Rattler challenges, the guidelines

emphasize: (1) the importance of selecting other subjects in

arrays and lineups who resemble the suspect in respect to

significant features described by the witnesses; (2) the dangers

of simultaneous identification procedures, like the six-person

photo array used in Rattler’s case, that encourage inaccurate

relative judgments; and (3) the inherent suggestiveness of

identifications in which only one individual is shown to a

witness. The guidelines also reference studies documenting

concerns about some of the identification procedures used in

Rattler’s case.1

 In his brief, Rattler references other secondary

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BEHAV. 603, 630-31 (1998); Gary L. Wells et al., Guidelines for

Empirically Assessing the Fairness of a Lineup, 3 LAW & HUM.

BEHAV. 285, 291-92 (1979); (2) only one individual in an array,

lineup, or show-up exhibits key traits referenced by a witness, see

Gary L. Wells et al., On the Selection of Distractors for Eyewitness

Lineups, 78 J.APPLIED PSYCHOL. 835, 835-44 (1993); and (3) an array

has multiple photographs on a single page, see Wells et al., Eyewitness

Identification Procedures, at 613-17, 639-40. 

2 See, e.g., Neil Brewer et al., The Confidence-Accuracy

Relationship in Eyewitness Identification: The Effects of Reflection

and Disconfirmation on Correlation and Calibration, 8 J.

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOL. 44 (2002); Connie Mayer, Due Process

Challenges to Eyewitness Identification Based on Pretrial

Photographic Arrays, 13 PACE L. REV. 815, 845 (1994); Steven

Penrod & Brian Cutler, Witness Confidence and Witness Accuracy:

Assessing Their Forensic Relation, 1 PSYCH., PUB. POL., & LAW 817,

825 (1995). 

sources that indicate the lack of a significant correlation between

the accuracy of a witness’s prior description of a suspect and the

accuracy of a later identification, and between a witness’s

certainty about an identification and the accuracy of that

identification.2

We need not decide whether the identification procedures

used in Rattler’s case were impermissibly suggestive, however,

because even if they were, we conclude that the identifications

were nonetheless sufficiently reliable under the totality of

circumstances. 

First, each of the bank tellers directly confronted by the

robber gave him her focused attention for a period of minutes

under good lighting conditions. The SunTrust and the Bank of

America tellers viewed the robber from a distance of only a few

feet, while the First Union teller observed the robber from a

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distance of three feet and also had observed him waiting in line.

The other bank employees (Miller and Long) who testified also

had unobstructed views of a man demanding money from the

tellers. Except at First Union, the tellers also had the

opportunity to observe the robber a second time in the flesh

when he returned to their banks. 

 

Second, each of the bank employees who identified Rattler

at trial gave detailed descriptions of the robber shortly after each

robbery, prior to being asked to make a photographic or showup identification. The four tellers gave descriptions within an

hour of the robberies that were very similar and accurate in

terms of complexion, height, weight, age, facial hair, and dress.

Although there were some differences in the physical

descriptions of the robber, they are insignificant. Even Conley’s

reference to the robber’s pink lips, a characteristic not

mentioned by any other bank employee, does not detract from

the overall congruence of the bank employees’ descriptions of

the robber.

Third, the absence of a very substantial likelihood of

misidentification is further indicated by the fact that, as a result

of teller Smith’s identification of the robber to a security guard

upon the robber’s return to the Bank of America, the security

guard followed the man to the First Union Bank and upon his

exit, detained him until the FBI arrived. Upon his arrest, this

man, Rattler, had First Union’s “bait” money on his person.

Smith’s accurate identification thus led to Rattler being caught

red-handed.

Moreover, the tellers also were certain in picking out

Rattler’s photograph from the array, as was the First Union teller

when she saw him in the show-up. Although the certainty factor

has been subject to much criticism, see, e.g., supra note 2, the

Supreme Court has yet to repudiate it. It is true that the array

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identifications occurred six to eight weeks after the robberies,

but in another instance this court did not find this amount of

time to affect significantly the reliability of the identifications

where other factors, as here, strongly indicated the accuracy of

the identifications. See Lawson, 410 F.3d at 739.

Because the totality of circumstances shows that the out-ofcourt identifications were sufficiently reliable to preclude “a

very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification,”

Simmons, 390 U.S. at 384; see Washington, 12 F.3d at 1134, we

hold that the district court did not err in denying Rattler’s

motion to suppress. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of

conviction.

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