Opinion ID: 2268037
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Jury Instruction on Witness Identification

Text: The defendant contends that the trial justice committed reversible error in that portion of his instructions to the jury relating to eyewitness identification. The challenged portion follows: You may take into account both the strength of the identification and the circumstances under which the identification was made which includes whatever condition you may find that the witness was in when he viewed the defendant. You may also take into account that an identification made by picking the defendant out of a group of similar individuals is generally more reliable than one which results from the presentation of the defendant alone to a witness. You may also take into account any occasion in which a witness failed to make an identification. (Emphasis added.) The defendant contends that the trial justice's allusion to the comparison between the selection of a photograph from an array of individuals in comparison to the selection of a single individual constituted an unfair comment upon the evidence. We agree with defendant that the trial justice is obliged to be scrupulously fair to the defendant and to the state and that the justice must not infringe upon the factfinding province of the jury by coercion or improper suggestion. State v. Souza, 425 A.2d 893, 900 (R.I.1981). We also agree that lilt is not the function of a trial justice to act as [a trial] advocate for either the prosecution or the defense. State v. Fenner, 503 A.2d 518, 525 (R.I. 1986). We also agree that determining the reliability of eyewitness testimony and the trustworthiness of eyewitness observations is within the ken of the jurors. State v. Porraro, 121 R.I. 882, 892, 404 A.2d 465, 471 (1979). However, in the context of these acknowledged rules of law, we are unable to perceive that the trial justice's general observations taken from a set of model special instructions on identification adopted for use in the District of Columbia by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in United States v. Telfaire, 469 F.2d 552, 558 (D.C.Cir.1972), would violate any of these maxims. It is true that there was no out-of-court show-up in this case. It is also true that defendant was free to argue concerning the similarities of the array shown to Stoddard. The trial justice did not purport to comment on the similarity of the photographs or the reliability of the identification by witness Stoddard. He was only expressing some general guidelines that would apply to any consideration of eyewitness identification by a jury. At most, this portion of the instructions might be argued to be lacking in relevance since there was no show-up in the case at bar. Nevertheless, it did not indicate any opinion by the trial justice of the reliability of Stoddard's purported identification of defendant in this case from the photograph array. It is true that this Court has held that the Telfaire model instruction need not be given by a trial justice in situations in which a defendant has raised the issue of a show-up or cross-racial identification. State v. Payette, 557 A.2d 72, 73 (R.I.1989); State v. Andrade, 544 A.2d 1140, 1143 (R.I. 1988); State v. Hadrick, 523 A.2d 441, 444 (R.I.1987). Our criticism of the instruction proposed by Judge Bazelon in respect to cross-racial identification in Hadrick is, of course, not applicable to the case at bar. In none of these cases did we state that giving a portion of this general instruction on a photograph array would constitute reversible error. At most, we said that this model instruction need not be given. The trial justice did not indicate any opinion concerning whether the other persons in the six-photo array bore resemblance to Werner, nor did he express an opinion in respect to Stoddard's ability to observe or recollect defendant's identity at the time of the shooting. We reject defendant's contention that this instruction in any way constituted prejudicial error on the part of the trial justice.