Opinion ID: 2060637
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Right to counsel and confrontation of witnesses.

Text: Defendant contends that the out-of-court identification of the defendant through photographs violated his sixth amendment right to counsel and right to confront the witnesses against him. Defendant analogizes the decisions of United States Supreme Court in United States v. Wade, supra , and Gilbert v. California (1967), 388 U. S. 263, 87 Sup. Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1178. In Kirby v. Illinois (1972), 406 U. S. 682, 683, 92 Sup. Ct. 1877, 32 L. Ed. 2d 411, the United States Supreme Court summarized its earlier decisions in the following manner: In United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, and Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, this Court held `that a postindictment pretrial lineup at which the accused is exhibited to identifying witnesses is a critical stage of the criminal prosecution; that police conduct of such a lineup without notice to and in the absence of his counsel denies the accused his Sixth [and Fourteenth] Amendment right to counsel and calls in question the admissibility at trial of the in-court identifications of the accused by witnesses who attended the lineup.' Gilbert v. California, supra, at 272. Those cases further held that no `in-court identifications' are admissible in evidence if their `source' is a lineup conducted in violation of this constitutional standard.... A majority of the courts that have ruled on this question have held that the rationale of Wade, supra, applies only where the defendant is present and confronted by a witness and is inapplicable to photograph viewings and identifications. [12] This court is in accord. In Kain, supra, at pages 218, 219, this court stated: It is argued that Wade-Gilbert should be read to equate showing a photograph to a witness with a police lineup where the accused is present with others, and held under certain circumstances to be entitled to the presence of counsel. There is nothing in Wade-Gilbert to suggest that it is stretchable to such new outer limits. Actually, in Wade itself, the nation's high court listed `the identification by picture of the defendant prior to the lineup,' as one of the factors that might establish that a witness' identification of defendant at trial was not the product of a lineup held without counsel being present.... In addition, the photographic identification took place September 22, 1969, two days before the criminal warrant was issued or the criminal complaint filed. The United States Supreme Court has recently held that the Wade-Gilbert per se exclusionary rule does not extend to identification testimony that takes place before a defendant is indicted or otherwise formally charged. In Kirby v. Illinois, supra, at pages 688-690, the United States Supreme Court stated: In a line of constitutional cases in this Court stemming back to the Court's landmark opinion in Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, it has been firmly established that a person's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment right to counsel attaches only at or after the time that adversary judicial proceedings have been initiated against him. See Powell v. Alabama, supra ; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458; Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52; Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335; White v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 59; Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201; United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218; Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263; Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U. S. 1. This is not to say that a defendant in a criminal case has a constitutional right to counsel only at the trial itself. The Powell case makes clear that the right attaches at the time of arraignment, and the Court has recently held that it exists also at the time of a preliminary hearing. Coleman v. Alabama, supra . But the point is that, while members of the Court have differed as to existence of the right to counsel in the contexts of some of the above cases, all of those cases have involved points of time at or after the initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment. . . . The initiation of judicial criminal proceedings is far from a mere formalism. It is the starting point of our whole system of adversary criminal justice. For it is only then that the government has committed itself to prosecute, and only then that the adverse positions of government and defendant have solidified. It is then that a defendant finds himself faced with the prosecutorial forces of organized society, and immersed in the intricacies of substantive and procedural criminal law. It is this point, therefore, that marks the commencement of the `criminal prosecutions' to which alone the explicit guarantees of the Sixth Amendment are applicable. See Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S., at 66-71; Massiah v. United States, 377 U. S. 201; Spano v. New York, 360 U. S. 315, 324 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). In this case we are asked to import into a routine police investigation an absolute constitutional guarantee historically and rationally applicable only after the onset of formal prosecutorial proceedings. We decline to do so. Less than a year after Wade and Gilbert were decided, the Court explained the rule of those decisions as follows: `The rationale of those cases was that an accused is entitled to counsel at any critical stage of the prosecution, and that a post-indictment lineup is such a critical stage.' (Emphasis supplied.) Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377, 382-383. We decline to depart from that rationale today by imposing a per se exclusionary rule upon testimony concerning an identification that took place long before the commencement of any prosecution whatever. (Emphasis added.) [13] The defendant further argues that the police authorities should have held an in-custody, corporeal, lineup, attended by counsel, at the Fort Atkinson police department on September 13, 1969, and that only if such a lineup is a physical impossibility, are the police free to use other methods to gain that identification. Defendant's argument is rejected. There is yet no court decision holding a lineup constitutionally required. This court, in Dozie, supra, at page 215, stated: ... Identification by means of such prearranged police lineup is one, but only one, of the methods of identification that may be used by law enforcement authorities. Where the identifying is done by photograph, or by direct observation, of the suspect alone, or, as here, by picking the suspect out of a crowd, we deal with methods of identification that are not lineups at all under even the broadest definition of that word. If the suggestion is that the police must stage a lineup to have a proper identification of a suspect, there is no basis for any such suggestion.... [14] Defendant's sixth amendment rights to counsel and confrontation of witnesses have not been violated by the pictorial pretrial identification of defendant in the absence of counsel. Defendant also contends that the taking of his photograph at the Fort Atkinson police department constituted an illegal seizure of evidence. This issue is raised for the first time by the defendant in his reply brief on this appeal. It was not a part of his pretrial motion to suppress the photographic identification or his motion for a new trial. Furthermore, because of the defendant's failure to raise this issue in the trial court, the factual record of what transpired at the Fort Atkinson police department on September 13, 1969, is meager. Therefore, this issue is not before this court on appeal and we consider it to be improperly raised for the first time by defendant in his reply brief. [15] Also, we have previously determined that the state has shown, through clear and convincing evidence, that an independent source existed for the in-court identification by Mr. and Mrs. Voss. We are also of the opinion that the evidence in this case was sufficient to prove the defendant guilty of the crime charged beyond all reasonable doubt. On review in a criminal case, the test of the sufficiency of the evidence has been stated many times and is `... whether the evidence adduced, believed and rationally considered by the jury was sufficient to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt ....' Lampkins v. State (1971), 51 Wis. 2d 564, 577, 187 N. W. 2d 164; State v. Laabs (1968), 40 Wis. 2d 162, 172, 161 N. W. 2d 249; Bautista v. State (1971), 53 Wis. 2d 218, 223, 191 N. W. 2d 725. In the case before us, the state has met the test. [16] Finally, the defendant asks for a new trial in the interest of justice pursuant to sec. 251.09, Stats. The motion is primarily based upon what the defendant refers to as inherently unreliable identification evidence. We do not share the defendant's opinion of the identification evidence. We find no error in the instructions given by the trial court on the identification issue. It cannot be said that the identification of the defendant by Mr. and Mrs. Voss was impermissibly suggestive or tainted. Their testimony as to the identification of the defendant was positive and unwaivering and established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was one of the men who robbed them. By the Court. Judgment and order affirmed.