Opinion ID: 730982
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arthur Rancourt's In-Court Identification Testimony

Text: 12 The defendant argues that the district court violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process when it denied his motion to suppress Arthur Rancourt's in-court identification of Ciak as the man who had threatened Michael Reed in the parking lot. The defendant contends that Rancourt's identification testimony was unreliable because Agent Zane Roberts of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms exposed Rancourt to unduly suggestive identification procedures on two occasions prior to Ciak's first trial. 13 The first incident occurred soon after the events of April 12, 1991. Roberts met with Rancourt in an effort to elicit a positive identification of Ciak as the man who had threatened Michael Reed. Rancourt failed to select Ciak's picture out of a photo array, however, choosing another photograph instead. At this point, Agent Roberts apparently picked out Ciak's photo and identified it as a picture of Scott Ciak, the individual being held for threatening Reed. In a second incident, which occurred just before Rancourt testified at the first Ciak trial, Rancourt apparently noticed the defendant's driver's license on Roberts's desk, at which point Roberts allowed him to examine it and Rancourt identified the picture as that of the defendant. 14 We review a district court's decision to admit identification evidence for clear error. United States v. Jakobetz, 955 F.2d 786, 803 (2d Cir.1992). Where, as here, there is the potential taint of suggestive pre-trial identification procedures, the court must decide whether to permit an in-court identification by weighing the degree of suggestiveness of these procedures against factors suggesting that [the] in-court identification may be independently reliable rather than the product of the earlier suggestive procedures. United States v. Maldonado-Rivera, 922 F.2d 934, 973 (2d Cir.1990); see also Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-201, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382-83, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); Dickerson v. Fogg, 692 F.2d 238, 244-45, 247 (2d Cir.1982); Solomon v. Smith, 645 F.2d 1179, 1185 (2d Cir.1981). Accordingly, even where a witness is subject to suggestive pre-trial identification procedures, the court may still admit the witness's in-court identification testimony if it concludes that this identification is independently reliable, United States v. Thai, 29 F.3d 785, 808 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 977, 115 S.Ct. 456, 130 L.Ed.2d 364 (1994), although a strongly suggestive pre-trial identification procedure necessarily makes it difficult for the reviewing court to find such independent reliability, see Dickerson, 692 F.2d at 247. 15 In this case, the Government concedes, as it must, that Roberts employed unduly suggestive pre-trial procedures with Rancourt, but maintains that Rancourt's in-court identification of the defendant was independently reliable. See Brief for Appellee at 13. We need not decide, however, whether the indicia of independent reliability identified by the Government in fact overcome the conceded suggestiveness of Roberts's pre-trial procedures. In light of the substantial evidence presented at trial demonstrating that the defendant threatened Michael Reed--even without considering Rancourt's in-court identification--we conclude that any district court error in admitting the identification testimony was harmless. 16 To find that a constitutional error was harmless, a reviewing court must conclude that there was no reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction ... and that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Wilson, 11 F.3d 346, 351 (2d Cir.1993) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 379-80 (2d Cir.1992) (concluding that, even if admission of in-court identification of defendant by murder witness was clear error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of second eyewitness's identification and other evidence suggesting defendant's guilt). Several factors lead us to conclude that the admission of Rancourt's identification testimony, even if erroneous, was harmless by this standard. Significantly, Rancourt's own testimony, even without the in-court identification, provided substantial evidence that the defendant had threatened Michael Reed in the parking lot. In his testimony, Rancourt recalled the description of the gunman that he had provided to the police dispatcher--that he had a blond pony tail, was wearing an eight-ball jacket, and left the scene driving a white Trans Am with a female passenger. An officer who observed the Trans Am leave the parking lot then relayed the position of the car; a car matching that description and traveling along the same route was then pulled over by another officer. Inside the car was the defendant, with what the arresting officer described as long, blond hair and an eight-ball jacket, accompanied by his girlfriend, Rebecca Durosette. 17 Nor was Rancourt the only witness implicating the defendant. In testimony from the first Ciak trial that the Government introduced at the second trial, Steven Reed provided his version of the same scene that Rancourt had observed--the defendant pointing a gun at the head of Michael Reed. Steven Reed also testified that earlier on that same day the defendant showed Steven Reed two weapons, including a 9mm pistol. 18 Moreover, the defendant, first in cross-examining Rancourt and later in his closing statement, emphasized that, after Rancourt selected a picture other than Ciak's from the photo array, Agent Roberts identified Ciak's picture as that of the suspected offender, and that Agent Roberts later permitted Rancourt to view Ciak's driver's license photo. The jury can be expected to have discounted Rancourt's in-court identification testimony in light of this information. Indeed, during deliberations, the jury requested evidence of the description of the suspect that Rancourt provided to the police dispatcher, suggesting that the jurors found Rancourt's contemporaneous description of the offender more compelling than his in-court identification more than four years later. 19 In sum, we conclude that the jury in this case had before it ample evidence--even without Rancourt's in-court identification--establishing that Ciak threatened Michael Reed with a pistol. Accordingly, any error the district court may have committed in admitting Rancourt's identification testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.