Opinion ID: 1577275
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defense Efforts to Suppress and Exclude Identifications

Text: The defense moved to suppress the identifications made by Ms. Segura and Ms. Grayson alleging the circumstances under which they were made were unclear. The court postponed consideration of the suppression of Ms. Segura's identification until she returned to the United States to testify at the defendant's trial. Ms. Segura is a Mexican national, who was illegally in the United States at the time of the crime. Sometime after the shootings, Ms. Segura returned to live in Mexico. At the suppression hearing, the State asserted, as it has throughout the entirety of the criminal proceedings, that it was working with the federal government to arrange for Ms. Segura's temporary return to the United States to allow her to testify at the trial. Subsequently, the defense filed a motion in limine to exclude Ms. Segura's statements and identification of the defendant made in connection with Mr. Brumfield's trial. Based on the State's assertion that it was feverishly still attempting to obtain Ms. Segura's presence at the defendant's trial, the court excluded her hearsay statements, but not her testimony in the event of her appearance at trial. The district court then proceeded with the hearing on the motion to suppress Ms. Grayson's identification. She testified that she identified the defendant from a photographic lineup conducted by police at her home two weeks after the shootings. Regarding the lineup procedure, Ms. Grayson's testimony on direct examination provided, in part: Ms. Grayson: Basically, they gave me the lineup and, you know, said for me to, you know, have some time. Look at it. And I really didn't need that much time. II identified the guy right away. Prosecutor: Okay. How long do you believe it took you in order to pick out the individual who shot Aaron Arnold and yourself? Ms. Grayson: Not even a minute. Prosecutor: Okay. Ms. Grayson: Just a couple of seconds. On redirect, Ms. Grayson was shown the photograph used in the lineup and asked again how long it took her to select the defendant as the gunman. She responded, [b]asically I looked at this and I picked it. I mean itit was like five seconds. I mean it just didn't take that long at all. On cross-examination, Ms. Grayson testified that days after her release from the hospital she was shown one or two photographic lineups prior to the one where she identified the defendant as the gunman. As to the prior lineups, Ms. Grayson testified that the detectives, as they did for the lineup where she identified the defendant, advised her that the assailant may not have been in the lineup. She contended that she was unable to pinpoint the person in the earlier lineups. In fact, the defendant was not depicted in these earlier photographic lineups. Ms. Grayson stated that she was under the influence of pain medication for the earlier lineups, but confirmed that she was not taking pain medication at the time she identified the defendant. Moreover, Ms. Grayson testified that she had not seen any suspects in news coverage before she identified the defendant. [2] Following the testimony of the officer that administered the final photographic lineup to Ms. Grayson, the district court denied the motion to suppress her identification because it found no evidence that the procedure was impermissibly suggestive.