Opinion ID: 2301355
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Courthouse Encounter

Text: Spratt argues on appeal that the hearing justice wrongfully dismissed his claim that a courthouse identification of Spratt by Mr. Perrin was improperly orchestrated by the state. The record reflects that at some point during trial, and in response to the state's request, Mr. Perrin came to the courthouse for a meeting with the state prosecutor. While sitting in a courthouse hallway waiting for the meeting, Mr. Perrin saw Spratt being escorted down the hallway by two marshals. Soon afterward, in a meeting with state prosecutors, defense counsel, and police detectives, Mr. Perrin reported the recent chance encounter by stating I saw him; and as soon as I saw him, I knew who he was. Spratt contends that this encounter was improperly orchestrated by the state and that, therefore, Mr. Perrin's subsequent in-court identification was unconstitutional. This Court previously decided a case with a virtually identical scenario in State v. Bertram, 591 A.2d 14 (R.I.1991), in which a witness recognized the defendant prior to trial as she was waiting in a courthouse corridor. The defendant in Bertram, 591 A.2d at 26, argued that the trial justice erred by allowing the witness to identify the defendant at trial after the chance encounter. Although the witness in Bertram was at the courthouse at the request of the Attorney General's office, this Court held that no suppression of the identification was necessary because there was no evidence indicating that the confrontation with the defendant was orchestrated by the police or prosecution. Id. at 27; see also State v. Pailin, 576 A.2d 1384, 1389 (R.I.1990) (holding that an accidental encounter in the courthouse between a witness and a defendant did not necessitate suppressing the subsequent in-court identification). In the instant case, there is likewise no evidence that police or prosecutors planned the encounter between Spratt and Mr. Perrin. Furthermore, after this encounter came to light, the trial justice conducted a mid-trial voir-dire hearing out of the presence of the jury, consuming fifty-seven pages of trial transcript, in which Mr. Perrin was subject to extensive direct and cross-examination. Finding that the encounter was totally accidental and without any orchestration by the state, the trial justice allowed Mr. Perrin to identify Spratt at trial. The hearing justice, upon review of Spratt's postconviction-relief application, recognized that extensive effort at trial, stating that the chance encounter    ha[d] been gone over and fully briefed and argued during the course of the trial, and clearly [Mr. Perrin] had an independent recollection of [Spratt]. Accordingly, we discern no error in the hearing justice's finding that Spratt's contention was without merit.