Opinion ID: 1850321
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to suppress evidence of the pre-trial identification

Text: ¶ 10. When reviewing a trial court's ruling on the admission or suppression of evidence, this Court must assess whether there was substantial credible evidence to support the trial court's findings. Culp v. State, 933 So.2d 264, 274 (Miss. 2005). The admission of evidence lies within the discretion of the trial court and will be reversed only if that discretion is abused. Id. ¶ 11. There is no question that under the Sixth Amendment, a defendant is entitled to counsel at all proceedings after adversarial proceedings have been initiated against him. Brooks v. State, 903 So.2d 691, 694 (Miss.2005). Adversarial proceedings are held to have been initiated when a defendant is arrested pursuant to a warrant. Nicholson v. State, 523 So.2d 68, 74 (Miss.1988). ¶ 12. In the present case, the lineup was conducted eight days after Lattimore was arrested pursuant to a warrant. The law enforcement officers should not have conducted the identification proceeding knowing that Lattimore's counsel could not be present. In Jimpson v. State, 532 So.2d 985, 988 (Miss.1988), a lineup was conducted in order to identify a man accused of armed robbery. Because his counsel was not present at the proceeding, this Court concluded that constitutional error had occurred. Id. at 989. This was not the end of the analysis, however. Under the doctrine of harmless constitutional error, the majority opined that: . . . there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the federal constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction. Id. ( quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967)). The Court went on to say that [a]lthough Jimpson's right to counsel had attached at the lineup, thereby constituting a technical violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel, the record is clear that . . . their identification was based on their view of the defendant at [the scene of the crime] and not based on the lineup identification. Id. ¶ 13. The reasoning utilized in Jimpson is likewise applicable to the present case. The lineup itself was constitutional error but not fatal to this case. Lattimore's right to counsel had attached before the lineup was conducted, and thus proceeding with the lineup without his counsel was error. However, it is clear that Virgie Dycus's in-court identification was based upon her view of the defendant at the scene of the crime and not based upon the lineup. Under the standard set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Chapman, and followed in Jimpson, the conviction was not obtained based upon the lineup, but instead was a result of the in-court identification coupled with other evidence. ¶ 14. In ruling on the defendant's motion to suppress, the trial court correctly held that according to the Jimpson case, the Court must still look at the specific circumstances of this case and of the lineup and the identification . . . [t]he Court is going to deny the motion and allow the identification, finding that the identification of this witness is not based on the lineup, and she will be allowed to make the identification in Court. There is no merit to Lattimore's first issue.