Opinion ID: 1182224
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Eyewitness Identifications

Text: Defendant claims that the trial court's refusal to suppress eyewitness identifications that were allegedly biased by suggestive, improper, tainted and unreliable pretrial identification procedures denied him due process of law. Defendant focuses primarily on the witnesses' exposure to extensive media coverage of the victim's disappearance and defendant's later arrest and prosecution, and he argues that this exposure so tainted the witnesses that any subsequent identifications were inherently unreliable. We address the question of media exposure separately from other possibly suggestive pretrial viewings of defendant. A. Media Exposure To consider fully defendant's claim that exposure to publicity tainted the subsequent witness identifications, we first examine the scope and nature of the media coverage of this case. The victim's abduction became an immediate media sensation in the Tucson area. In the hours following the kidnapping, the media disseminated information to the community concerning the search for the young girl and the nascent investigation into her disappearance. Perhaps fueled by the resulting atmosphere of intense community concern and outrage over the senselessness of the crime, the press continued to devote significant coverage to the case, with defendant's arrest and subsequent prosecution receiving particular attention. As the trial judge would later remark, To live in Pima County and avoid exposure to this coverage would have required one to be a hermit living in a cave. Press coverage of defendant included:  photographs of him being arrested and transported in handcuffs;  close-up photographs of his face;  videotapes of him being arrested and escorted from a police vehicle by law enforcement officials;  videotapes of his return to Tucson;  extensive videotaped coverage of his hearings;  voice-overs and/or lead-ins accompanying the videotapes identifying Atwood as the suspect and the defendant, with frequent references to his prior convictions and parole status; and  newspaper articles, accompanied by photographs of defendant, providing information about his background, prior convictions, and parole status, and discussing evidence incriminating him in the victim's kidnapping and murder. Approximately one year before his trial, defendant moved to suppress the identification testimony of 14 witnesses, claiming that some might have been subject to improperly suggestive identification procedures and that all had been tainted by pretrial publicity. In response to defendant's motion to suppress, the trial court held an 11-day Dessureault hearing, see State v. Dessureault, 104 Ariz. 380, 384, 453 P.2d 951, 955 (1969), to determine the admissibility of the various identifications. The trial court concluded that all 14 witnesses had been exposed to one or more pretrial viewings of defendant under circumstances that were inherently suggestive. The court stated: As a result of all this exposure every eye-witness has had one or multiple prehearing and pretrial viewings of the Defendant. Whatever the witnesses' opportunity and ability to make their original observations and then to recall and testify about them, those observations cannot be free of influence from their subsequent viewings of the Defendant in the various suggestive circumstances. The trial court, relying on Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977), and its predecessors, then applied a totality of the circumstances analysis to determine whether the admission of the various identifications would violate defendant's constitutional right to due process. See Manson, 432 U.S. at 113-14, 97 S.Ct. at 2252-53; see also Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). Based on its analysis, the court suppressed the identification testimony of two witnesses, but refused to suppress the identification testimony of the remaining 12 witnesses. We review a trial court's decision on a motion to suppress under a clear abuse of discretion standard. See State v. Fisher, 141 Ariz. 227, 236, 686 P.2d 750, 759 (1984) (It is well established in this state that a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress will not be disturbed absent a clear abuse of discretion.), citing State v. Adamson, 136 Ariz. 250, 665 P.2d 972 (1983); State v. Ferreira, 128 Ariz. 530, 627 P.2d 681 (1981). Based on our review of the relevant authority and the record in this case, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to suppress the identification testimony of any of the 12 witnesses who testified. Initially, we recognize that each of the cases relied on by the trial court in conducting its analysis concerned unnecessarily suggestive government identification procedures, and note that the record in this case reveals no such procedures. However, we do not believe that unnecessarily suggestive government identification procedures are a sine qua non of due process concerns. Rather, we believe that  reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony ..., Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. at 2253 (emphasis added), and the trial court properly read Manson and its predecessors as requiring it to make an initial determination as to the reliability of the identification testimony of the 14 witnesses. Similarly, we believe that the trial court properly considered the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the identification testimony of the witnesses was reliable. Manson, 432 U.S. at 113-14, 97 S.Ct. at 2252-53. [1] Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court's analysis is supported by well-established Supreme Court precedent. We also believe that the trial court's decision to admit the identification testimony of 12 of the 14 witnesses is supported by the record. After conducting the Dessureault hearing, and after considering the factors bearing on reliability under the totality of the circumstances, the trial court concluded that the identification testimony of 12 of the 14 witnesses was reliable. Indicative of the trial court's conscientiousness in conducting this hearing is its finding that the identification testimony of two witnesses was not reliable. In addition to conducting a conscientious hearing, we believe that the trial court properly concluded that the identification testimony of 12 of the 14 witnesses was reliable. Although the record indicates that each of the 14 witnesses was exposed to inherently suggestive viewings of the defendant, the record does not indicate that the identification testimony of any of the 12 witnesses who testified was thereby rendered so unreliable that its admission would violate due process. We therefore find no error. B. Other Pretrial Viewings Our review of the record indicates that the only other potentially suggestive pretrial viewings of defendant were (1) a photo spread shown to a young witness; (2) the same photo spread as witnessed by the youth's mother as she looked over his shoulder; and (3) the showing of black and white photos of defendant to another witness, Michael Eggers, by an investigator hired by defendant's first attorney. The trial court considered each of these viewings in its ruling on defendant's motion to suppress. A trial court's decision concerning the reliability of an identification will not be overturned on appeal absent clear and manifest error. State v. Myers, 117 Ariz. 79, 84, 570 P.2d 1252, 1257 (1977). We find no such error in the trial court's determination; defendant's motion to suppress was properly denied. We also note that, even if these witnesses had been irreparably tainted by the pretrial viewings, no prejudice inhered to defendant. The young boy did not testify at trial, and his mother was called as a defense witness. Michael Eggers was called as a prosecution witness and he identified defendant as the man he had seen in a trailer park near the victim's school. However, assuming arguendo that his identification was tainted by the viewing of the photographs, that viewing was initiated by defense counsel's own investigator. Therefore, no basis existed for suppressing Eggers' identification.