Opinion ID: 354064
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Wearing of the Disguises

Text: 10 Appellant made timely motions that he should not be required to wear stocking masks before the jury. He contends that the denial of these motions was error, although he does not articulate specific reasons why the prejudicial effect of wearing the disguises outweighed the probative value in the circumstances of this case. 11 The trial court required Satterfield to put on the masks on three occasions during the trial. On each of the first two occasions, two eyewitnesses to the robberies were in the courtroom, which reduced the number of maskings from four to two. The purpose of the third showing was to permit the jury to compare Satterfield's masked appearance with the appearance of the robbers in bank surveillance photographs introduced into evidence. On each of those three occasions, Satterfield put on and took off the mask outside the presence of the jury, so the jury saw Satterfield masked for the shortest possible time that permitted the eyewitnesses and jury to view him fairly. In addition, some witnesses identified Satterfield in a line-up where all the participants were masked, and photographs of those line-ups were introduced in evidence. 12 The manner in which in-court identifications are conducted rests within the sound discretion of the trial court. United States v. Williams, 436 F.2d 1166, 1168 (9 Cir. 1970); United States v. King, 433 F.2d 937, 938 (9 Cir.), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 976, 91 S.Ct. 1681, 29 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970). The trial court did not abuse its discretion here. The ability of the eyewitnesses to identify Satterfield as the masked robber is certainly probative, and the fact that they had made similar identifications in Satterfield's first trial and at some line-ups does not destroy the probative value of the last in-court identification. The wearing of the disguises aided the jury in its fact-finding function. By seeing for itself Satterfield in disguises, it could better evaluate the ability of the eyewitnesses to recognize a masked person on different occasions. The third wearing of the disguises also helped the jury to judge for itself whether the individual in the bank surveillance photographs was Satterfield. 13 The probative value outweighed the prejudicial effect, which was minimized by limiting both the time during which the jury saw appellant in disguise and the number of times on which he had to put on the mask. 14