Opinion ID: 202406
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Inconsistent testimony: his motivations for demanding Henderson's identifying information

Text: 42 Henderson points out that Kominsky's testimony was inconsistent on the obviously pertinent matter of why Kominsky either asked for (in Kominsky's view) or demanded (in Henderson's view) his identifying information. At a detention hearing that occurred shortly after Henderson's arrest, Kominsky said that he secured the identifying information for two reasons: to see if Henderson could drive Alford's car and because Henderson was not wearing his seatbelt. At the first suppression hearing, Kominsky added a third reason: he said that he sometimes asked passengers in stopped cars for their identification because: If I feel like asking everybody in the car for their license, I will. Kominsky also indicated for the first time at the suppression hearing that he could request Henderson's identifying information in order to see whether he could drive even after Henderson denied having a license in his possession. At the second suppression hearing, the other officer on the scene, Oliveira, rejected this purported justification, saying that naturally, he couldn't drive the vehicle without presenting a valid license. 43 At the second trial, after the denial of the suppression motion, Kominsky reversed course twice more, first explicitly denying on direct examination that he had any reason to ask for Henderson's identification apart from the purported seatbelt violation, and then stating on cross examination that the seatbelt violation was his primary motivation, but that [t]here's a number of reasons [] that I could ask him for his identification. The government rightly notes that this testimony at the second trial came in after the court ruled on the suppression motion, and hence cannot contribute to the clear error analysis. But the government says nothing to explain Kominsky's inconsistent testimony about his motivations before the district court made its findings. In any case, Kominsky's inability to remember consistently — at any point in the proceedings — why he demanded Henderson's identification is another negative factor in the evaluation of his credibility. 44