Case Name: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Gary W. SEPULVADO, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1978-08-02
Citations: 362 So. 2d 324
Docket Number: No. 77-987
Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Gary W. SEPULVADO, Appellee.
Judges: GRIMES, C. J., and SCHEB, J., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 362
Pages: 324–333

Head Matter:
STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Gary W. SEPULVADO, Appellee.
No. 77-987.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Aug. 2, 1978.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 14, 1978.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Mary Jo M. Gallay, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellant.
Jack 0. Johnson, Public Defender, and P. Douglas Brinkmeyer, Asst. Public Defender, Bartow, for appellee.

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Appellee/defendant Sepulvado and two others were charged with the aggravated battery of Louis Fox. Prior to trial Sepul-vado moved to suppress any testimony that Fox might give identifying him as one of Fox's assailants. The trial court granted the motion, holding that Fox could not testify as to his pretrial identification of Sep-ulvado, nor could he give an in-court identification. The state appeals the trial court's order. We affirm.
Sepulvado's motion alleged that a photo display shown to the victim Fox by the police shortly after he was attacked was impermissibly suggestive, and that it would taint any in-court identification the victim might give. At the hearing on the motion Fox and Detective McManus of the Clear-water Police Department were the only witnesses.
First, Fox was called as a witness for the state. He testified he had been attacked and beaten by three white males as he walked down a well lighted street in downtown Clearwater in the early morning hours of February 3, 1977. He claimed to have gotten a good look at his assailants, even though he acknowledged he had seen them for only "three or four seconds" as they attacked him. He described the color of their hair, and noted that each of the assailants had a full beard.
After he was treated and released from the hospital, Fox went to the police department where he was asked to go through a "photo tray" by Detective McManus. This was about eight hours after the incident. According to Fox the photo tray contained approximately 150 pictures, about 30% of which were black males and the rest white males. Fox said that he went through all the pictures and selected six. After a further viewing of these six, he selected three which he identified as being his assailants. One of these was defendant Sepulvado. During cross-examination Fox specifically denied that Detective McManus had brought him any additional photographs once he began looking at the photo tray.
The defense then called Detective McMa-nus, who gave quite a different version of the photo identification procedure. First, he said the photo tray contained pictures of white males only, and did not contain any pictures of blacks as Fox had testified. The detective also said it had come to his attention while Fox was looking at the photo tray that Sepulvado and two others (all of whom had previous criminal records and photos on file) had been arrested in the vicinity of the assault shortly after it had occurred. The detective stated that he thereupon took photographs of these three men into the room where the victim was going through the photo tray and told the victim, "[W]hen you finish going through those photographs [the ones in the photo tray] would you please look at these photographs [the three file photographs]?" McManus further testified that when he laid the three additional pictures on the desk the victim immediately identified them as his assailants. According to McManus the victim was reasonably certain about two of the subjects but not quite sure about Sepulvado. The reason Fox gave for not being certain that the photo of Sepulva-do was the third assailant was that the photo (apparently made some years before) depicted a man with a beard, whereas his third assailant did not have a beard. This, of course, conflicts with Fox's testimony that each of his assailants had a full beard.
When Sepulvado was arrested a new picture was taken of him in which he did not have a beard. This new picture was placed in a photo pack with pictures of four other individuals. This new photo pack was shown to the victim the next day. From this five-picture photo pack Fox was able to positively identify Sepulvado as being the third assailant.
As is obvious, the testimony at the suppression hearing was conflicting in several important respects. While the detective said he had presented the pictures of Sepul-vado and his cohorts to Fox separately, Fox denied this and said these pictures had been selected by him from the some 150 photographs in the photo tray. Fox said the photo tray contained pictures of both black and white males; the detective said it contained only pictures of white males. Fox said that all three men who had attacked him were bearded; the detective testified that Fox had told him that Sepulvado did not have a beard. These conflicts made the trial court's decision a hard one.
In Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972), the Supreme Court noted that almost all identification procedures will be suggestive to some extent. However, such procedures do not become impermissibly suggestive and require suppression unless the "totality of the circumstances" indicate that the identification resulting from the procedure is unreliable. See also Baxter v. State, 355 So.2d 1234, 1237 (Fla. 2d DCA 1978). Justice Powell, writing for the majority in Neil v. Biggers, enumerated five factors relevant to this determination of reliability vel non :
(1) the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime;
(2) the witness' degree of attention;
(3) the witness' prior description of the criminal;
(4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification procedure; and
(5) the length of time between the crime and the identification procedure.
409 U.S. at 199, 93 S.Ct. at 382, 34 L.Ed.2d at 411.
After the victim testified in the instant case, the trial judge indicated that the state had made a prima facie showing that the photographic display was presented in an acceptable manner. But, after the police detective testified the court granted defendant's motion to suppress. This demonstrates to us that the court chose to place great credence on the testimony of the police detective. From our review of Detective McManus' testimony we believe that the trial court could have properly concluded that the photo display was suggestive. The pictures of Sepulvado and his two code-fendants were presented to the victim in such a way as to pointedly draw Fox's attention to them. Further, when Sepulva-do's picture was subsequently presented to the victim in the five-picture photo pack it augmented the suggestiveness of the previous identification procedure.
As noted, mere suggestiveness does not necessitate suppression; it is only procedures that are impermissibly suggestive under all the circumstances of the case that call for suppression.
A trial court's factual conclusions come to this court clothed in a presumption of correctness, and we must make all reasonable inferences and deductions capable of being drawn therefrom in a manner that will sustain the trial court's conclusions. Cameron v. State, 112 So.2d 864, 869 (Fla. 1st DCA 1959). Without recounting the evidence, we think that in holding the identification procedures to be impermissibly suggestive the trial court must have considered the extremely short glimpse the victim had of his assailants at the time of the assault, the trying conditions under which he viewed them, the inconsistency as to whether Sepulvado was bearded, and the victim's unsureness about the identity of Sepulvado at the time of the photographic display. Considering the law enunciated in Neil v. Biggers, and under the standard of review we are mandated to follow, we cannot say the trial court erred in finding the identification procedures were impermissi-bly suggestive.
Our inquiry, however, does not end here. The trial court in its order not only prohibited any testimony concerning the pretrial photo display, but also prohibited any in-court identification of Sepulvado by the victim. So this additional question must be asked: Even though the pretrial identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive, did the trial court err in suppressing any in-court identification the victim might give? We think not.
In-court identification must be prohibited if the impermissibly suggestive
pretrial identification procedure "gives rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable mistaken identification." Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247, 1253 (1968). See also United States v. Sutherland, 428 F.2d 1152, 1155 (5th Cir. 1970). The heart of this standard is that a suggestive pretrial identification procedure should not be allowed to taint an in-court identification. Therefore, all the surrounding circumstances must be considered to determine if the witness' in-court identification is grounded upon a basis independent of the suggestive pretrial procedure. Simmons v. United States, supra; Hamilton v. State, 303 So.2d 656 (Fla. 2d DCA 1974); Cribbs v. State, 297 So.2d 335 (Fla. 2d DCA), cert. denied, 303 So.2d 335 (Fla.1974). However, once a trial court determines that a pretrial identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive, it is presumed that any in-court identification will be tainted. It is the state's burden to overcome this presumption by "clear and convincing" evidence. United States v. Sanders, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 210, 215, 479 F.2d 1193, 1198 (1973); United States v. Cook, 464 F.2d 251, 254 (8th Cir. 1972); Cribbs v. State, supra, at 336. But see State v. Ciongoli, 313 So.2d 41, 44 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975). We do not believe the trial court erred in finding that the state had not carried its burden in the instant case. The only additional evidence presented by the state which the court could have considered on this issue consisted of statements by the victim that he had an independent recollection of his assailants apart from the suggestive photo display. However, the trial court found in its order of suppression that the victim's testimony was "extremely suspect" because of the conflicts with the testimony of the detective. The trial judge obviously placed little weight on his statements. We cannot say the trial court's judgment was in error on this score.
We therefore affirm the order of the trial court suppressing the identification testimony.
GRIMES, C. J., and SCHEB, J., concur.