Opinion ID: 683141
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Tien Chiau Restaurant Homicides and Carol Huang's Identification of Alex Wong.

Text: 25
26 On July 16, 1989, Carol Huang and her husband Gregory Hyde had dinner at the Tien Chiau Restaurant in Flushing. After Huang and Hyde finished dinner, they approached the counter to pay the manager, but saw two young Chinese men having an intense conversation with the manager, and so returned to their table to wait for the manager to finish the discussion. 27 After hearing what they thought were firecrackers, Hyde turned and saw one of the young Chinese men with a gun in his hand, in a crouched position and shooting at the manager. Huang also saw the manager being shot. Hyde told his wife to duck under the table. As he tried to do so, Hyde was shot and fell to the floor, his legs paralyzed. After Huang saw her husband fall to the floor, she looked up and stared at the face of the young man with the gun for [t]wo to three seconds, while he looked at her. Huang described the gunman, whom she later identified as Alex Wong, as a very nice-looking kid with huge, extraordinary huge eyes, and approximately sixteen to seventeen years of age. Huang continued to stare at Wong for what felt like ages, because she feared that he would shoot at her or her husband again. Finally, Wong turned away when someone at another table screamed. Huang then saw Wong shoot in the direction of the scream. Both Anthony Gallivan, another customer dining at the restaurant, and Mon Hsiung Ting, the manager of the Tien Chiau, died from gunshot wounds inflicted during this incident. 28 Earlier that summer, Chen I. Chung had told Sonny Wong that the manager of the Tien Chiau Restaurant had refused to pay protection money to the Green Dragons, and that he planned to have the manager killed to teach the owners of the restaurant not to mess with the Green Dragons. Joseph Wang and Alex Wong were in charge of collecting protection money from the Tien Chiau Restaurant. The night of the incident, Chen I. Chung contacted Sonny Wong to tell him the Tien Chiau manager was dead, and instructed Sonny Wong to meet him at Chung's apartment. There Sonny Wong met with Alex Wong, Joseph Wang, and Chiang T. Cheng, who were debriefing Chung on the shooting. Cheng had driven Wang and Alex Wong to the restaurant. Alex Wong stated that he had shot the manager and a Caucasian customer. Joseph Wang said that after looking behind the cashier's counter to ascertain whether a security camera had recorded the incident, he had shot the manager again to be certain that he was dead. 29
30 Huang provided an identification of Alex Wong as the shooter at the Tien Chiau Restaurant, and Wong moved unsuccessfully to suppress that evidence prior to trial. Wong claims error in the district court's adverse ruling. Given the nature of Wong's challenge, the next two paragraphs of this opinion describe primarily the testimony at the pretrial suppression hearing, which is generally consistent with the trial testimony on this issue. 31 Shortly after the incident, on July 25, 1989, Huang met with an NYPD sketch artist, who prepared a sketch based on Huang's description of the gunman's facial features. On September 22, 1989, Huang viewed three different photo arrays, each containing six photographs of Asian men. According to the interviewing NYPD detective, Huang chose Sonny Wong's photo from the first array and Joseph Wang's from the second, stating that their pictures resembled the shooter she had seen. She also chose Alex Wong's photo from the third array, observing that the photo look[ed] like the shooter, and that if she saw the subject of the photograph in person she could identify him. Huang's testimony was similar to the detective's, but somewhat more tentative, and emphasized her desire to see the suspects in person. 32 On May 3, 1990, the NYPD conducted a lineup before Huang of six or seven Asian men, including Alex Wong. After looking at the lineup for five to ten minutes, Huang indicated that she wasn't sure. Huang stated that one of the men (number five--Alex Wong) look[ed] like him, but she can't be sure because of the height. The police then held a second lineup with the same participants standing, dimming the lights to simulate the lighting in the restaurant on the night of the shooting. Huang viewed the lineup for approximately five to ten minutes; just before she did so, a police detective told her that we can't just take a 'possibly.'  Huang then identified Alex Wong. Although he was taller than she remembered the gunman to be, Huang stated that Wong had the same facial features, fair skin, [and] rather big, huge eyes. 33 Based on this testimony, Alex Wong moved to suppress Huang's identification testimony, contending primarily that the detective's statement had pressured her into making an identification and thereby tainted Huang's identification of Wong. Wong also argued that there was not a sufficient independent basis for the testimony to be admissible, claiming that Huang had initially described the shooter as five feet seven inches tall, when his height was six feet two inches tall. The district court denied the motion. Although finding the detective's comment involve[d] some element of suggestiveness, the court concluded that Huang's identification was independently reliable and that Huang would be allowed to testify at trial. At trial, Huang both made an in-court identification of Wong and testified concerning her out-of-court identification of Wong after the standing lineup. 34
35 On appeal, Wong contends that Huang's in-court and out-of-court identifications of him should have been suppressed, arguing that both the detective's comment and the fact that Wong was taller than the other participants (by six to eight inches, according to the police detective's estimate) rendered the standing lineup unduly suggestive. (Wong does not challenge the fairness of either the photo arrays or the sitting lineup.) Wong notes that Huang testified at trial that she had never seen a photograph of him before picking him out of the standing lineup, although she had in fact done so when shown the photo arrays. Wong argues that Huang's hesitance in identifying Wong in the photo array and the seated lineup contrasts starkly with her certainty after the standing lineup, indicating that the second lineup was suggestive and that her identification was not independently reliable. Finally, Wong argues that the length of time between the shooting and the lineup--ten months--weighs heavily against a finding of independent reliability. 36 The Supreme Court has established a two-step inquiry for evaluating the constitutional permissibility of in-court identification testimony based on out-of-court identification procedures. That inquiry requires a determination of whether the identification process was impermissibly suggestive and, if so, whether it was so suggestive as to raise 'a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.'  Jackson v. Fogg, 589 F.2d 108, 111 (2d Cir.1978) (quoting Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 198, 93 S.Ct. 375, 381-82, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972) (citing Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968))). 37 If pretrial procedures have been unduly suggestive, a court may nonetheless admit in-court identification testimony if the court determines it to be independently reliable. See Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 2253, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977); Jarrett v. Headley, 802 F.2d 34, 42 (2d Cir.1986). The court should consider the reliability of the identification in light of 38 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 at the confrontation, and the time between the crime and the confrontation. Against these factors is to be weighed the corrupting effect of the suggestive identification itself. 39 Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. at 2253; see also Neil, 409 U.S. at 199, 93 S.Ct. at 382. For both pretrial and in-court identifications, the linchpin of admissibility is reliability. Manson, 432 U.S. at 106 n. 9, 114, 97 S.Ct. at 2249 n. 9, 2253. However, if impermissibly suggestive procedures are not employed, independent reliability is not a constitutionally required condition of admissibility, and the reliability of the identification is simply a question for the jury. Jarrett, 802 F.2d at 42 (citations omitted). 40 We are not persuaded that the standing lineup was unduly suggestive. Wong does not contest the fact that the composition of the lineup, which featured a number of Asian males of similar general appearance, was fair. While the detective's comment created the risk of prompting an identification on something less than total certainty, it did not suggest that Huang choose any particular participant, nor did it confirm the correctness of her choice after it had been made. See Jarrett, 802 F.2d at 46 (prosecutor's statement to witness before trial to stick to [his] guns about identification not impermissibly suggestive because it could be, and was, taken to mean that witness should speak his mind). 41 Further, while lineups that unnecessarily contrast the height of a suspect with that of the other participants have been condemned as suggestive, see, e.g., Foster v. California, 394 U.S. 440, 442-43, 89 S.Ct. 1127, 1128-29, 22 L.Ed.2d 402 (1969); McFadden v. Cabana, 851 F.2d 784, 785, 789-90 (5th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1083, 109 S.Ct. 1541, 103 L.Ed.2d 845 (1989), we do not consider the height discrepancy to have been suggestive in this case. The circumstances of this case seem to indicate that Huang chose Wong despite his height, not because of it. In any event, Huang's testimony was that Wong was in a crouched position, shooting, when she observed him in the restaurant, rendering a misestimate of his height understandable without significantly undercutting the reliability of her identification. 42 When the appearance of participants in a lineup is not uniform with respect to a given characteristic, the principal question in determining suggestiveness is whether the appearance of the accused, matching descriptions given by the witness, so stood out from all of the other[s] ... as to 'suggest to an identifying witness that [that person] was more likely to be the culprit.'  Jarrett, 802 F.2d at 41 (emphasis added, alterations partially added, other alteration added in Jarrett ) (quoting United States v. Archibald, 734 F.2d 938, 940 (2d Cir.), modified, 756 F.2d 223 (2d Cir.1984)); see also United States v. Jakobetz, 955 F.2d 786, 803 (2d Cir.) (lineup not suggestive where defendant's moustache was smaller than those of other lineup participants, because witness described man with no facial hair), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 104, 121 L.Ed.2d 63 (1992); Solomon v. Smith, 645 F.2d 1179, 1182-84 (2d Cir.1981) (lineup suggestive when suspect was only person meeting description of height and weight provided by witness); United States ex rel. Cannon v. Montanye, 486 F.2d 263, 266-67 (2d Cir.1973) (lineup suggestive when defendant directed to wear green sweater, witness had stated that suspect wore green shirt), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 962, 94 S.Ct. 1982, 40 L.Ed.2d 313 (1974); United States v. Fernandez, 456 F.2d 638, 641-43 (2d Cir.1972) (photo array suggestive when defendant's was only photo matching skin color described by witnesses). According to Wong, Huang initially described the gunman as approximately five feet seven or eight inches tall. Although the other lineup participants more closely fit this description, Huang chose Wong because of his facial features, commenting that he was taller than she remembered. 43 We conclude that neither the detective's comment, nor the height differential between Wong and the other participants in the lineup, nor the combination of these two factors rendered the lineup at which Huang identified Wong unduly suggestive. Furthermore, in any event, viewing the totality of the circumstances, see Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. at 2253; Neil, 409 U.S. at 199, 93 S.Ct. at 382, Huang's pretrial identification was independently reliable and thus admissible. 44 Huang observed the gunman after she ducked under the table at the restaurant, staring him in the face for [two] to three seconds before he turned away. This was sufficient for identification. See Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 4-6, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 2000-02, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970) (plurality opinion) (fleeting but real good look at assailant sufficient for identification). Moreover, as the district court found, Huang's degree of attention was very high as she stared at the assailant's face because she feared he would open fire on her and her husband. See United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 378 (2d Cir.1992) (nature of events in struggle and shooting was such as to attract and hold [the witnesses'] attention), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 163, 126 L.Ed.2d 124 (1993); Gonzalez v. Hammock, 639 F.2d 844, 847 (2d Cir.1980) (witness' attention would be riveted on a man who was pulling a shotgun from a bag), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1088, 101 S.Ct. 880, 66 L.Ed.2d 815 (1981). 45 Further, Huang worked with a sketch artist in the development of a composite sketch of the assailant that, the district court found, bore a striking resemblance in many respects to Alex Wong. As to certainty, Huang apparently made a tentative identification of Wong after the first lineup, but said she was not very sure. Huang displayed no doubts after the second lineup, or in her subsequent testimony. In commenting upon Huang's testimony at the pretrial suppression hearing, the district court observed that Huang was a person of rather strong character who was not easily influenced by anyone, and concluded that Huang's certainty was the result of her own independent recollection. Finally, the length of time between the crime and the confrontation (ten months before the lineup and thirty-one months before the in-court identification), while a factor militating against reliability, may be outweighed by other indicia of reliability. See United States v. Jacobowitz, 877 F.2d 162, 168 (2d Cir.) (ten-month interval), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 866, 110 S.Ct. 186, 107 L.Ed.2d 141 (1989); United States v. Williams, 596 F.2d 44, 49 (2d Cir.) (thirty-two month interval), cert. denied, 442 U.S. 946, 99 S.Ct. 2893, 61 L.Ed.2d 317 (1979). 46