Opinion ID: 774020
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Independent Reliability

Text: 118 If the pretrial process was unduly suggestive, the court must then weigh the corrupting effect of the suggestive[ness] against other factors indicating that the identification may be independently reliable, Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. at 114, for even a suggestive procedure does not in itself intrude upon a constitutionally protected interest if it did not contribute significantly to the identification of the defendant, id. at 113 n.13. See, e.g., Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 5-6 (1970) (plurality opinion of Brennan, J.) (no relief warranted by fact that one of the attackers wore a hat and defendant Coleman was the only participant in the lineup to wear a hat, where it d[id] not appear that [the witness's] identification of Coleman at the lineup was based on the fact that he remembered that Coleman had worn a hat at the time of the assault). 119 In determining whether a witness's in-court identification of the defendant has reliability independent of the unduly suggestive identification procedures, the court looks generally to the factors set out in Neil v. Biggers, taking into account [1] the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, [2] the witness' degree of attention, [3] the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the criminal, [4] the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and [5] the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. at 199 200; accord Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. at 114. A good or poor rating with respect to any one of these factors will generally not be dispositive, see, e.g., United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 377 (2d Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 856 (1993), and in each case, the question of independent reliability must be assessed in light of the totality of the circumstances, see, e.g., Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. at 199; Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. at 4 (plurality opinion of Brennan, J.); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. at 302.