Opinion ID: 2353264
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Identification by Officer Smith

Text: Gerard Smith, the off-duty police officer working as a security guard in the store next to the Say-a-Lot, identified Appellant from a photo array six weeks after the shooting, prior to Appellant's arrest. He also identified Appellant at a line-up, at the preliminary hearing, and at trial. See N.T., 10/3/94, at 69, 89-95; Washington, 700 A.2d at 406. Appellant asserts that Officer Smith's identification of him is unreliable and should not have been admitted because, following the robbery, Officer Smith saw the assailant for just a couple of seconds, in a dimly lit parking lot through a maze of cars, as the assailant was running away from him. Again, Appellant argues this claim as if he were on direct appeal, rather than in terms of layered ineffective assistance of counsel. Nevertheless, after a review of the record, we conclude that Appellant's claim lacks merit. Appellant does not allege that the pre-trial identifications were suggestive. Rather, Appellant's arguments about the circumstances surrounding Smith's ability to see him following the robbery all go to the jury's weighing of testimony, not its admissibility. There was simply no basis for trial counsel to challenge the admissibility of Officer Smith's in-court identification. See Commonwealth v. Fletcher, 561 Pa. 266, 750 A.2d 261, 277 (2000) (ruling that the eyewitness' smoking crack when she observed crime went to weight rather than admissibility). Counsel will not be deemed ineffective for failing to raise a meritless claim. Commonwealth v. May, 587 Pa. 184, 898 A.2d 559, 564 (2006); Commonwealth v. Tilley, 566 Pa. 312, 780 A.2d 649, 653 (2001).