Title: State v. Yehling
Citation: 108 Ariz. 323, 498 P.2d 145
Docket Number: 2265
State: Arizona
Issuer: Arizona Supreme Court
Date: June 7, 1972

108 Ariz. 323 (1972) 498 P.2d 145 The STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Robert William YEHLING, Appellant. No. 2265. Supreme Court of Arizona, In Banc. June 7, 1972. Gary K. Nelson, Atty. Gen. by Paul J. Prato, Asst. Atty. Gen., Phoenix, for appellee. Howard A. Kashman, Pima County Public Defender by Eleanor Daru Schorr, Deputy Public Defender, Tucson, for appellant. HAYS, Chief Justice. This is an appeal by the defendant from a conviction of armed robbery and a sentence of not less than ten nor more than twelve years. Anthony Nicastro owned a barber shop. Business was slack and he fell asleep in his barber chair while watching TV. He was awakened by a dark-haired man with a gun. Shortly thereafter, a second man a blonde, wearing a mask entered the shop. The first man clubbed the barber on the head with the gun, and both men forced Nicastro to the back room of the shop where he sat on a bed while they tied him up. They took his wallet and money and left. Nicastro gave the police a description of the first man, and a few days later Detective Penning showed the victim six black-and-white pictures which included one of the defendant. The detective did not suggest that the pictures included one of the suspect. They were numbered one to six. As the barber leafed through the pictures and came to number three, he immediately and unhesitatingly made a positive identification of defendant's picture. After that, the officer showed him two colored pictures of defendant which Nicastro also identified. The display of the pictures to the victim was done without defendant's knowledge and without telling defendant that he had a right to have an attorney present during *324 the identification procedure, and no such attorney was in fact present. The leading case on photographic identification is Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S. Ct. 967, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1247, in which the United States Supreme Court held: The right to counsel at a lineup has been firmly established by the United States Supreme Court in post-indictment lineups. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S. Ct. 1926, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1149, and Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S. Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1178. The main reason given in those decisions is that a lineup is a critical stage in the proceedings against the defendant. In his brief, defendant argues that a photographic identification is merely another form of a lineup; that defendant's constitutional right to have an attorney present at a lineup applies to a photographic identification; and that in this case the latter was so suggestive as to taint the in-court identification. Defendant contends that a photo-identification is an even more critical stage than a physical lineup, because where photographs are used, defendant is not even present to observe any improprieties. The principal case cited in defendant's brief in support of his theory is United States v. Zeiler, 427 F.2d 1305 (3rd Cir.1970), in which the court reversed a conviction and held: Just a few weeks ago, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, overruled its previous decision in Zeiler, supra. In the case of United States ex rel. Reed v. Anderson, 461 F.2d 739, decided April 11, 1972, that court said: Defendant also calls our attention to three other cases: Thompson v. State, 85 Nev. 134, 451 P.2d 704; Commonwealth v. Whiting, 439 Pa. 205, 266 A.2d 738, and State v. Ferguson, 3 Wash. App. 898, 479 P.2d 114. While these cases support defendant's position, two of them affirmed the convictions anyway, after looking to the totality of the circumstances. In our opinion, the sounder view is represented by United States ex rel. Reed, supra. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit also has spoken on this issue, as follows: In the instant case, the six black-and-white photographs used by the police to effect the initial identification, have been preserved and made a part of the record. We have examined them and note that they are calculated to make it difficult for anyone to point to the defendant's picture for any reason except an honest conviction that he was the robber. In short, the totality of the circumstances gives rise to no suspicion of any kind that the photographic identification was conducted without the most scrupulous care to make the identification free from possibility of error. The judgment of the superior court is affirmed. CAMERON, V.C.J., and STRUCKMEYER, LOCKWOOD and HOLOHAN, JJ., concur.