Opinion ID: 2543459
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutional under-pinnings of due process doctrine

Text: Until 1967 the manner in which out-of-court identifications were conducted was held to affect the weight but not the admissibility of identification testimony at trial. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 382, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); People v. Monroe, 925 P.2d 767, 770 (Colo.1996). In that year, however, the Supreme Court decided a trilogy of cases in which it articulated constitutional grounds for the exclusion of evidence of both out-of-court identifications and subsequent in-court identifications tainted by them. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). In two of the three cases, exclusion of evidence was premised on a criminal defendant's right to counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Wade and Gilbert the Court sought to protect against suggestive pretrial identification procedures by permitting the presence of defense counsel, who could observe and bring to the attention of the jury anything that would affect the reliability of the witness's pretrial identification or taint subsequent in-court identifications. It therefore held that a post-indictment identification involving a lineup or showup conducted by law enforcement officials was a critical stage of the proceedings, and a failure to provide counsel at such a procedure would be sanctioned by the exclusion of the evidence of identification. Wade, 388 U.S. at 236-37, 87 S.Ct. 1926; see also Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 688-89, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972)(defendant's Sixth Amendment right attaches at or after the time that adversary judicial proceedings have been initiated against him ... whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment); People v. Anderson, 842 P.2d 621, 622 (Colo.1992). [2] Because the Court considered it meaningless to merely exclude evidence of the out-of-court identification, once the witness had observed the defendant under these circumstances, it included within the exclusionary sanction for a violation of the right to counsel any subsequent in-court identification by the witness, unless the government could establish by clear and convincing evidence that the in-court identification was based upon observations of the suspect other than the lineup identification. Wade, 388 U.S. at 240, 87 S.Ct. 1926; Monroe, 925 P.2d at 770. Much like the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule's treatment of derivative evidence, the exclusionary sanction for violation of the Sixth Amendment therefore included an exception for subsequent in-court identifications for which there was an independent source. The third case in the trilogy, Stovall v. Denno , involved an identification procedure to which the Sixth Amendment right to counsel was held not to apply. Nevertheless, the Court recognized that independent of any right-to-counsel claim, it would be a valid ground of attack that an out-of-court confrontation was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that [a defendant would be] denied due process of law. 388 U.S. at 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967. Because the showup in that case, however, was found not to have been unnecessarily suggestive, the nature of a due process violation and the scope of any sanction for such a violation was not further defined. In part because the Supreme Court's early attempts used terms like unnecessarily suggestive, id., and impermissibly suggestive, see Simmons, 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967 ([C]onvictions based on eyewitness identification ... will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.), without actually finding a due process violation and implementing a sanction, the constitutional basis and standards for excluding evidence remained unclear for a number of years. By analogy to a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, many jurisdictions, including this one, considered the witness's independent ability to make an identification only as an independent source or independent basis for allowing an in-court identification, despite an unduly, impermissibly, unnecessarily, or unconstitutionally suggestive out-of-court procedure. See Huguley v. People, 195 Colo. 259, 261-62, 577 P.2d 746, 747 (1978)(allowing in-court identification based on independent source following suppression of unduly suggestive out-of-court identification); People v. Stevens, 642 P.2d 39, 40 (Colo.App.1981)(suppressing out-of-court identification because of unduly suggestive and improper procedure but remanding for consideration of independent basis for possible in-court identification); see also People v. Madonna, 651 P.2d 378, 383-84 (Colo.1982)(allowing in-court identification after excluding unnecessarily suggestive photo showup); People v. Horne, 619 P.2d 53, 56 (Colo.1980)(condoning in-court identifications after impermissibly, unduly, or unconstitutionally suggestive procedures); see generally Nathan R. Sobel, Eyewitness Identification: Legal and Practical Problems §§ 4:3-4 (2001). At least by the time of Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977), the Supreme Court made clear that it rejected any thought of excluding identification evidence solely as a means of deterring disfavored police conduct, as it had done with the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, concluding instead that reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony. 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243. In contrast to a per se Sixth Amendment violation, it held that a defendant's right to due process of law was not violated by the conduct of a pretrial identification procedure alone, no matter how suggestive or disfavored. Id. (despite suggestiveness of single photo array, due process not violated if identification possesses certain indicia of reliability); see also Biggers, 409 U.S. at 198, 93 S.Ct. 375 ([A]dmission of evidence of a showup without more does not violate due process.); People v. Smith, 620 P.2d 232, 237 (Colo.1980)(One-on-one showups are not favored and tend to be suggestive, but are not per se violative of due process.). A due process violation would occur only by admitting very questionable identification evidence, whether of an out-of-court identification procedure that was so suggestive in the totality of the circumstances that it created a very substantial likelihood of misidentification or an in-court identification made unreliable by it. Manson, 432 U.S. at 116, 97 S.Ct. 2243. The Supreme Court also made abundantly clear that the likelihood of misidentification must always depend upon the witness's ability to reliably identify the defendant, despite the corrupting effect of a suggestive identification procedure, as measured by such considerations as the witness's opportunity to see the perpetrator, his degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior descriptions, the certainty of his identification, and the time and events occurring between the crime and the identification procedure. Id.; see also Biggers, 409 U.S. at 199-200, 93 S.Ct. 375. The practical effect of this holding was to apply the Simmons standard of admissibility for in-court identifications that followed unnecessarily suggestive out-of-court identifications to the initial out-of-court identification as well. See Manson, 432 U.S. at 119-24, 97 S.Ct. 2243 (Marshall, J., dissenting)(arguing that the term unnecessarily suggestive was intentionally used in Stovall as a basis for suppressing unjustifiable police conduct alone; that impermissibly suggestive was used in Simmons in addressing the admissibility of subsequent in-court identifications where the taint was irreparable; and that the Biggers majority in effect overruled both holdings by dropping the word irreparable from the Simmons formula and applying it to both in- and out-of-court identifications). The suggestiveness of the procedures themselves, or the lack of any justifiable need for such suggestiveness, could therefore never result, in and of itself, in a due process violation or the exclusion of evidence, see Manson, 432 U.S. at 113 n. 13, 97 S.Ct. 2243, and therefore could also never be impermissible in any constitutional sense. Since Manson, lower courts have generally recognized that where a witness has the ability to make a reliable identification, notwithstanding any suggestive pretrial procedures, the challenged out-of-court, as well as a subsequent in-court, identification must be admitted. See Smith, 620 P.2d at 237-238. Failing to grasp the full import of Biggers and Manson, however, many of these courts continued to cling to certain aspects of the constitutional violation theory that was squarely rejected by the Supreme Court in those cases. Most notably, by treating some unspecified type or degree of suggestiveness in the identification procedures themselves as impermissible, and therefore unconstitutional in the absence of proof by the government of an independent source or independent basis, these jurisdictions simply ignore Manson's interpretation of the prior Supreme Court holdings. See, e.g., United States v. Sanchez, 24 F.3d 1259 (10th Cir.1994)(purporting to apply the  Simmons test, without acknowledging that Biggers or Manson were ever decided); Monroe, 925 P.2d at 771-72, 774-75 (acknowledging Biggers and Manson but accounting for the witness's own observations at the time of the crime only after determining that a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification exists for the suggestiveness of the procedure alone). The due process analysis of pretrial identification procedures and in-court identifications in their wake initially requires two distinct inquiries and then a weighing or balancing of the two. Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243. The court must weigh the suggestiveness of the pretrial procedures on one side, and the witness's independent ability to identify the defendant on the other. Id. While certain identification procedures are disfavored because they are inherently suggestive, see generally Manson, 432 U.S. at 116, 97 S.Ct. 2243 (single photo showups disfavored), no degree of suggestiveness considered apart from the witness's independent ability to make a reliable identification is in any sense unconstitutional or impermissible. Not only do Biggers and Manson not dictate otherwise; their explanation and ultimate holdings are an emphatic rejection of any such reading. As the analysis and conclusion of the majority, and those courts upon which it relies, make painfully clear, applying the concept of impermissibility to one half of the equation, as a kind of threshold burden for the defendant prior to any balancing, is not merely a matter of semantics but goes to the very heart of the dispute resolved by the Court in Biggers and Manson. Shifting the burden of persuasion to the prosecution to establish the reliability of identification testimony can be justified only by characterizing police conduct as being, in some sense, impermissible. See, e.g., State v. Cefalo, 396 A.2d 233, 237 (Me.1979)(Having utilized an unfair means to establish defendant's guilt, the State must show that defendant was not harmed by its own transgression.). Unlike violations of the Fourth or Sixth Amendment, from which the independent source doctrine is clearly borrowed, however, the due process test applies to both the derivative in-court identification and the challenged pretrial identification itself; and unlike unreasonable seizures or post-indictment lineups outside the presence of defense counsel, suggestive pretrial identifications are not unconstitutional. As Manson makes clear in its very formulation of the due process standard, in- and out-of-court identifications are not rehabilitated and rendered admissible by a showing of reliability; rather they become unconstitutional and are excluded or suppressed only upon a showing that there is a very substantial likelihood of misidentification. Manson, 432 U.S. at 116, 97 S.Ct. 2243. Conceptually, the burden of persuasion therefore never shifts to the proponent of identification evidence challenged as impermissibly suggestive, even by a preponderance of the evidence, much less by a clear and convincing standard. [3] While the Supreme Court has not spoken directly about many of the procedural aspects of a due process challenge to eyewitness testimony, it has held that the ultimate determination whether a pretrial identification procedure creates a very substantial likelihood of misidentification is a mixed question of fact and law. Sumner v. Mata, 455 U.S. 591, 597, 102 S.Ct. 1303, 71 L.Ed.2d 480 (1982). Like the voluntariness of a confession, see Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985), this determination involves findings of historical fact, such as lighting, timing, positioning, and the witness's degree of attention, as well as the way in which the identification procedure was conducted, all of which are entitled to deference by a reviewing court; but the ultimate constitutional question concerning the likelihood of misidentification is primarily a legal matter to which no deference is owed. Sumner, 455 U.S. at 597 n. 10, 102 S.Ct. 1303. Unlike the voluntariness of a confession, see Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), however, the likelihood of misidentification resulting from a pretrial procedure or a subsequent in-court identification does not require a judicial determination outside the presence of the jury in every case. Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 349, 101 S.Ct. 654, 66 L.Ed.2d 549 (1981). It is the reliability of identification evidence that primarily determines its admissibility. And the proper evaluation of evidence under the instructions of the trial judge is the very task our system must assume juries can perform. Id. at 347, 101 S.Ct. 654 (citations omitted). For obvious reasons, a judicial determination outside the presence of the jury will usually be advisable, especially where matters of historical fact are in dispute or the suggestiveness of out-of-court procedures makes admissibility questionable, but it is not required, either by constitution or rule. See id.; People v. Cobbin, 692 P.2d 1069, 1073 (Colo.1984) (identification suppression motions not among the pretrial suppression hearings required by Crim. P. 41(e) and (g)). Furthermore, both the Supreme Court and this court, as well as courts in other federal and state jurisdictions, have relied upon testimony at trial in assessing the constitutional admissibility of identification evidence in the wake of an allegedly suggestive pretrial procedure. See, e.g., Manson, 432 U.S. at 115, 97 S.Ct. 2243; Biggers, 409 U.S. at 200, 93 S.Ct. 375; People v. Weller, 679 P.2d 1077, 1083-84 (Colo.1984); see also United States v. de Jesus-Rios, 990 F.2d 672, 674 n. 2 (1st Cir.1993); State v. Sims, 952 S.W.2d 286, 290 (Mo.App.1997); State v. Keeling, 89 S.D. 436, 233 N.W.2d 586, 590 n. 2 (1975); see generally State v. Henning, 975 S.W.2d 290 (Tenn.1998)(providing litany of federal and state cases relying on trial testimony to uphold denials of suppression motions). While reviewing courts may not be properly situated to resolve disputed questions of historical fact for themselves, and while they are obliged to show deference to findings of fact by trial courts, this court has often accepted as established, matters of fact not disputed in the record that are central to a lower court's rulings. People v. Rivas, 13 P.3d 315 (Colo. 2000). Particularly in this context, the distinction between law and fact is not always easily drawn, Sumner, 455 U.S. at 598, 102 S.Ct. 1303, and the ultimate balance between the suggestiveness of the identification procedure and the witness's independent ability to make a reliable identification is treated as a matter of law.