Opinion ID: 677086
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: fourth amended petition

Text: 60 The district court gave Griffin leave to file a fourth amended petition in which he alleged that the St. Louis police officers violated his due process rights by engaging in suggestive misconduct during a pretrial photo identification procedure in which Robert Fitzgerald positively identified the petitioner. Griffin claims that he is entitled to a new trial because a substantial likelihood exists that he was mistakenly identified by Fitzgerald. Moreover, Griffin contends that any subsequent in-court identification was irreparably tainted by improper police conduct. Because the district court found that the actual innocence exception to the procedural bar applied to this claim, the district court addressed the merits of the claim. 61 A conviction based on eyewitness identification will be set aside only when pre-trial identification procedures were so impermissibly suggestive that the procedures themselves give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable harm. Trevino v. Dahm, 2 F.3d 829, 833 (8th Cir.1993). The analysis for challenging an improper identification mandates two separate findings. First, a court must determine whether the challenged confrontation between the witness and suspect was impermissibly suggestive. Graham v. Solem, 728 F.2d 1533, 1541 (8th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 842, 105 S.Ct. 148, 83 L.Ed.2d 86 (1984). If so, then the court must decide whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the suggestive confrontation created a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Id. Second, a court must ascertain whether the identification procedure was so needlessly suggestive and conducive to mistaken identification as to be fundamentally unfair. Id. In essence the second inquiry is whether the challenged identification is reliable. The Supreme Court has declared that the factors a court is to consider in evaluating the likelihood of misidentification include: 62 the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness' degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. 63 Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199-200, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972). 64 When an identification procedure is challenged in a habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254, the court must presume the state court's factual findings are correct, unless the findings lack fair support in the record. Graham, 728 F.2d at 1540 (citing Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 103 S.Ct. 843, 74 L.Ed.2d 646 (1983)); 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d)(8). This court has previously ruled that the presumption applies to the evaluation of both factors relevant to the determination of reliability as well as to the credibility determinations. See Trevino, 2 F.3d at 833; Graham, 728 F.2d at 1540-41. The district court found that the record fairly supported the trial court's factual findings regarding the pretrial photograph identification and that the findings would be presumed correct. We agree. 65 At the October 1993 evidentiary hearing Fitzgerald testified that he had no doubt that his pretrial identification of Griffin was accurate. The district court found that at no time during the hearing did Fitzgerald recant his testimony. Cf. Lewis v. Erickson, 946 F.2d 1361, 1362 (8th Cir.1991). The district court further found that Fitzgerald questioned the accuracy of his in-court identification only after Terrence Donough, a private investigator, informed him that Griffin had been given the death penalty for the Moss murder. 66 The district court determined that the pretrial identification of petitioner by Fitzgerald was reliable and not tainted by improper police conduct. There is no error in that finding.