Opinion ID: 1891623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Issue of defendant's identification following police station showup.

Text: Defendant contends it was error to permit in-court identification of defendant by witness Spieker, alleging taint by a previous, improper out-of-court showup. Within an hour after Spieker reached home after describing the man he observed to the officers, he complied with a telephone request to go to the police station. He stood at the front desk and they led a man through upstairs to ask me to identify to see if this was the man I saw running. Only one person was exhibited to Spieker. He identified that man as the one he had seen earlier. Cross-examination developed one of the escorting policemen was carrying a purple jacket. Spieker identified defendant in court as the person he observed running and staggering near the scene of the abandoned car. Upon cross-examination he denied his police-station observation of defendant re-enforced his in-court identification. He testified he remembered defendant's facial features from his first observation of him, even though he did not observe at that time whether the purple garment was a shirt or jacket. Principles applicable in these identification situations recently were collected in State v. Ash, 244 N.W.2d 812, 814 (Iowa 1976), and will not be repeated here. The relevant due process test prohibits identification testimony where the confrontation conducted is unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199, 1206 (1967). Every such one-on-one confrontation is suggestive. See State v. Salazar, 213 N.W.2d 490, 493 (Iowa 1973) and citations. But we consistently have recognized the type of procedure used here, while suggestive, is not unnecessarily suggestive in view of substantial countervailing policy considerations. State v. Wisniewski, 171 N.W.2d 882, 885 (Iowa 1969); see Russell v. United States, 133 U.S.App.D.C. 77, 81, 408 F.2d 1280, 1284 (1969), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 928, 89 S.Ct. 1786, 23 L.Ed.2d 245 (1969); State v. Emery, 230 N.W.2d 521, 524 (Iowa 1975); Williamson v. State, 201 N.W.2d 490, 491 (Iowa 1972); State v. Smith, 182 N.W.2d 409, 411 (Iowa 1970). The United States Supreme Court rejected the per se approach which requires exclusion of out-of-court identification evidence without regard to reliability, whenever it has been obtained through unnecessarily suggestive confrontation procedures. Instead the Court adopted an ad hoc approach which admits the evidence if, despite the suggestive aspect, the out-of-court identification possesses certain features of reliability. Manson v. Brathwaite, ___ U.S. ___, ____, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 2250, 53 L.Ed.2d 140, 150 (1977). In our consideration based on the totality of circumstances, Ash, supra, 244 N.W.2d at 814, we find the requisite degree of reliability in the out-of-court identification disclosed by this record. Additionally, we hold there was an independent origin for Spieker's in-court identification of defendant. His testimony is strong that his identification was based on observations of defendant in the street, not in the police station.