Opinion ID: 469447
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: admission of photographic array

Text: 20 Reiger next contends that the introduction into evidence of the photographic array, from which Hoapili identified him, violated his due process rights. On at least two occasions, the police showed Hoapili an array of photographs which included Reiger's picture. 3 Each time, Hoapili selected Reiger's picture, along with a few other pictures, as resembling her assailant. 4 Hoapili made a third positive identification at a live lineup conducted at the police station. 21 The prosecution sought to bolster Hoapili's in-court identification of Reiger as her attacker by introducing into evidence the photographic array shown to Hoapili in the hospital immediately after the attack. The pictures were introduced through the testimony of the investigating police officer, Detective Benson. Reiger argues that the introduction of the photographs, which presented front and profile images typical of police mugshots, prejudiced him by suggesting prior contact with the police. 22 The Hawaii Supreme Court rejected Reiger's argument, reasoning that Reiger's alibi defense rendered the question of identification crucial to the prosecution's case and holding that introduction of the photographs was relevant and necessary to the State's case. State v. Reiger, 64 Hawaii at 512, 644 P.2d at 962. The court applied the three-part test for the admissibility of such evidence established in State v. Kutzen, 1 Hawaii App. 406, 620 P.2d 258 (1980), and concluded that (1) the government demonstrated a need to introduce the photographs, (2) the photographs themselves gave no indication that Reiger had a prior criminal record, and (3) the manner of their introduction at trial did not draw particular attention to the source or implications of the photographs. State v. Reiger, 64 Hawaii at 512-13, 644 P.2d at 962. The district court reached the same conclusion. 23 The dispositive issue is not whether introduction of the photographs violated state law evidentiary principles, but whether the trial court committed an error which rendered the trial so 'arbitrary and fundamentally unfair' that it violated federal due process. Pennywell v. Rushen, 705 F.2d 355, 357 (9th Cir.1983) (quoting Powell v. Spalding, 679 F.2d 163, 166 (9th Cir.1982)). We are not persuaded that the trial court committed such an error. 24 The Eighth Circuit considered a similar situation in Futrell v. Wyrick, 716 F.2d 1207 (8th Cir.1983). There, an unsuccessful habeas petitioner claimed that the introduction of police mugshots at his trial violated his due process rights. The court of appeals disagreed. The manner in which the photographs were introduced, the court found, was unexceptionable. The photographs were never referred to as 'mugshots' and all police data was removed from them. Id. at 1208. Thus, their introduction did not violate notions of fundamental fairness. Id.; see also United States v. Terry, 760 F.2d 939, 944 (9th Cir.1985) (holding that introduction of mugshots containing no incriminating police data was not an abuse of the district court judge's discretion). 25 The photographs in Reiger's case did not betray any link with the police or suggest that Reiger had a past criminal record. See State v. Reiger, 64 Hawaii at 512, 644 P.2d at 962. Reiger does not allege that the pictures bore any markings identifying their source as the police department files or that the prosecution's efforts to disguise any identifying numbers or lettering drew attention to the pictures' prejudicial significance. Instead, he asserts only that the juxtaposition of front and profile images gave rise to an inference of a prior criminal record. See Barnes v. United States, 365 F.2d 509, 510-11 (D.C.Cir.1966) (finding that the double shot picture leads to an automatic response that the person photographed has a criminal record). 5 While it may have been preferable to separate the images, the mere failure to do so does not render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair. Futrell, 716 F.2d at 1208. 26 The fact that the prosecution chose to introduce the photographic array through the testimony of a police officer rather than through the testimony of Hoapili herself does not alter our conclusion. In United States ex rel. Bleimehl v. Cannon, 525 F.2d 414 (7th Cir.1975), another case in which the identity of the assailant was the central issue, the court sustained against a habeas challenge the introduction of an entire book of mugshots, including a photograph of the defendant taken some years earlier. Because the witnesses' ability to identify the assailant was central to the case, the court found that the probative value of allowing the jury to examine the mugshots was critical, while any prejudice that resulted was merely secondary to the manner in which the testimony established the defendant's identity as the culprit. Id. at 421-22. And in United States ex rel. Johnson v. Hatrack, 417 F.Supp. 316 (D.N.J.1976), aff'd 564 F.2d 90 (3d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 906, 98 S.Ct. 1454, 55 L.Ed.2d 497 (1978), a police officer, while describing a photographic array to the jury, inadvertently revealed that the photographs were mugshots taken from police files. The court concluded that the inference of the defendant's prior criminality raised by the officer's remarks was too slender a reed upon which to predicate a claim that the trial was fundamentally unfair. Id. at 324. 27 Similarly, the manner in which the state introduced the photographic array in Reiger's case did not amount to fundamental unfairness. As in Bleimehl, the victim's ability to identify her assailant was a central issue. And as in Hatrack, any prejudice resulting from the manner of introduction did not outweigh the probative value of introducing the photographs. 28 We need not address Reiger's argument, raised for the first time in his brief on appeal to this court, that the manner in which the police presented the photographs to Hoapili was impermissibly suggestive. Reiger failed to present this contention to the state courts. He thus forfeited his right to collateral relief in federal court. As discussed above, Reiger's failure to give the Hawaii Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on the issue and his inability to establish cause or prejudice for his failure preclude consideration of his claim here. 29 The district court properly dismissed Reiger's claim that the admission of the photographic array from which Hoapili first identified him violated Reiger's due process rights. 30