Opinion ID: 1205096
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Angela Womble's Pretrial and In-court Identifications

Text: 1. Factual Background Both before and during the preliminary hearing, as well as at trial, defendant sought to exclude Angela Womble's pretrial and in-court identifications of him, arguing they were the product of improper, suggestive procedures. The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the issue and considered the evidence adduced at the pre-preliminary hearing motion, testimony given at the preliminary hearing, and transcripts of Angela Womble's statements to Detective Shipp during the photo lineups on July 2 and July 22. The trial court ruled the identification testimony admissible. Defendant contends the trial court erred. To assess his claim, we summarize the evidence the trial court reviewed. Before the July 2 photographic lineup, an investigator received an anonymous telephone call stating that Willie Johnson had been with Allen Duchine on the day the crimes were committed. Detective Shipp learned of the call and selected a photograph of defendant, taken in 1981, for use in the lineup. Shipp arranged six photographs in each of the two lineups (one for defendant, the other for Duchine) that he planned to show Angela Womble. The names on all of the photographs were covered. On July 2 he showed each lineup to Angela, who was still in the hospital. Before doing so, Shipp admonished her that the person who committed the crime might or might not be in the lineup and that she was under no obligation to select anyone. Angela quickly identified Allen Duchine's photograph in the first lineup. Before viewing the second lineup, containing defendant's photograph, Angela described the other perpetrator as a young man, dark-skinned, short haircut, with the earring in one ear. She also said he was tall. Angela stated she did not know the man, but friends and family had told her he was Willie Johnson. When Detective Shipp showed her the second lineup, Angela examined the photographs for 11 seconds, then selected defendant's picture, saying His face looks familiar ... [b]ut see, it was dark. She asked if the person in the photograph was buff; [4] Shipp said he could not answer that. Angela acknowledged she was not positive about the identification, but the photograph look[ed] like him. The person in the photograph, she said, had the same facial features, round head, and forehead structure. On July 18, Detective Shipp brought Angela to the county jail to view a live lineup. On the way there, Shipp told her they had a suspect in custody; at the preliminary hearing he testified he told her Willie Johnson was in custody, but at trial he could not remember using that name. They entered the jail through the lobby and did not go into any portion of the building where inmates were housed. No lineup was held because defendant refused to participate, despite being told an attorney had been appointed to represent him. On July 22, Detective Shipp assembled another photographic lineup, using three of the photographs he had used in the July 2 lineup and a more recent photograph of defendant. Two photographs of men not included in the earlier lineup were also used in the July 22 lineup. Detective Shipp testified to the effect that his aim in reusing three of the photographs from the earlier lineup was to avoid the prejudice inherent in defendant being the only person depicted in both lineups. Defendant was dressed in jail clothes in the newer photograph, but his photograph showed him only from the chest upward so that it appeared he was wearing a gold shirt over a T-shirt. The other persons depicted in the lineup photos were not wearing jail clothing. Angela was unaware defendant was wearing jail clothes in the photograph. As with the earlier lineup, the names on the photographs were concealed. Once again, Detective Shipp admonished Angela that she was not obligated to identify anyone. After examining the lineup for several seconds, she identified defendant's photograph. She was positive about the identification, due to the round head, cheekbone structure, and the side of the ear. Angela used the name Willie in talking about defendant, indicating she had heard the name from family and friends. At trial, Angela testified that someone โ she could not remember who โ had told her Willie Johnson was responsible because he was running with Allen Duchine. She testified, however, that no one described Willie Johnson or told her anything else about him. She did not recognize any of the photographs from the first lineup as being in the lineup she examined on July 22. She identified defendant's photograph because she remembered him as the person standing over her with the shotgun. In December 1986, five months after the crime, Angela met with Detective Shipp and the prosecutor. Earlier she had said the gunman wore a shiny earring in his right ear. However, during their December conversation, while facing the prosecutor she pointed to his left ear. At the preliminary hearing, Angela testified she had no doubt it was in the left ear that the gunman wore his earring. Defendant's left ear, not his right, was pierced. At the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing, the trial court found that defendant had failed to present evidence showing that the photographic lineup was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a likelihood of ... irreparable misidentification. (See People v. Floyd (1970) 1 Cal.3d 694, 712 [83 Cal. Rptr. 608, 464 P.2d 64].) Accordingly, the court admitted Angela's pretrial identifications of defendant in the photo lineups. Angela also identified defendant as the second gunman at trial, based on her independent recollection. 2. Propriety of Admission of Identification Evidence (3a, 4a) Defendant renews his contention that Angela Womble's identifications were irreparably tainted by suggestive information and by undue emphasis on defendant's photograph in the July 22 lineup. Specifically, he objects to the fact that defendant was the only person depicted in the photo lineup who was wearing jail clothing and contends that there was an inadequate number of plausible suspects, and that defendant was the only person among the plausible choices who had been in the prior lineup. He also notes that before and after Angela saw the first photo lineup, she was told by family and friends that the second gunman was Willie Johnson, whom she had never seen before. He contends that after identifying his photograph in the July 2 lineup, Angela indicated uncertainty and began to ask questions to try to confirm the correctness of her choice. Although the police should have been especially careful to avoid suggestive or confirmatory comments, defendant argues, Detective Shipp told Angela en route to a live lineup two weeks later that a Willie Johnson had been arrested โ thus effectively confirming that Angela had selected the correct man. These infirmities in identification procedures, he contends, deprived him of his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and under article I, sections 1, 7, 15, 16, and 17, of the California Constitution. In People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at page 1242, we articulated the principles that determine whether the admission of identification evidence violates a defendant's right to due process. (5) Constitutional reliability, we said, depends on (1) whether the identification procedure was unduly suggestive and unnecessary ( Manson v. Brathwaite (1977) 432 U.S. 98, 104-107 [53 L.Ed.2d 140, 147-150, 97 S.Ct. 2243]); and, if so, (2) whether the identification itself was nevertheless reliable under the totality of the circumstances, taking into account such factors as the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness's degree of attention, the accuracy of his prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated at the confrontation, and the time between the crime and the confrontation. ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1242, citing factors enumerated in Neil v. Biggers (1972) 409 U.S. 188, 199 [34 L.Ed.2d 401, 411, 93 S.Ct. 375].) If, and only if, the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second is no, is the identification constitutionally unreliable. ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1242.) [5] It is unsettled whether suggestiveness is a question of fact (or a predominantly factual mixed question) and, as such, subject to deferential review on appeal, or a question of law (or a predominantly legal mixed question) and, as such, subject to review de novo. ( People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1242.) Defendant disagrees, contending the United States Supreme Court in Neil v. Biggers, supra, 409 U.S. at p. 201 [34 L.Ed.2d 412] resolved the issue by employing a de novo standard of review. Defendant overstates his case by ignoring the different procedural posture of Biggers. Debate over the proper standard of review of claims of impermissibly suggestive identification procedures continues. (See People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at pp. 1242-1243, and cases cited therein.) (3b) In any event, it is unnecessary for us to pronounce definitively on the question in this case, as we are compelled under any standard of review to conclude the trial court correctly allowed Angela Womble's July 22 photo identification of defendant into evidence. All of the photographs were of Black males, generally of the same age, complexion, and build, and generally resembling each other. Thus, defendant's photograph did not stand out, and the identification procedure was sufficiently neutral. (See People v. Gordon, supra, 50 Cal.3d at p. 1243; People v. St. Germain (1982) 138 Cal. App.3d 507, 520 [187 Cal. Rptr. 915].) Minor differences in facial hair among the participants did not make the lineup suggestive. (See People v. Holt (1972) 28 Cal. App.3d 343, 350 [104 Cal. Rptr. 572].) Nor did differences in background color and image size among the various photographs render the lineup impermissibly suggestive. (See, id. at pp. 349-350 [identification from mixture of black-and-white and color photographs not unduly suggestive].) We cannot agree with defendant that placement of the three new photographs in the top row of the display and the three old photographs โ including the more recent photograph of defendant himself โ in the bottom row created two suggestive subsets of photos. As the Court of Appeal observed in People v. De Angelis (1979) 97 Cal. App.3d 837 [159 Cal. Rptr. 111], no matter where in the array a defendant's photograph is placed, he can argue that its position is suggestive. ( Id. at p. 841.) Contrary to defendant's view, the use of photographs from the earlier lineup did not reduce the July 22 lineup to the functional equivalent of a three-person array. Such a measure was, as Detective Shipp reasoned, a reasonable way to avoid suggesting to the witness that defendant was the only person seriously suspected. Defendant complains that even if it was not inappropriate to reuse photos of other men from the first lineup in addition to defendant, Detective Shipp should have used new photos of those men as he did of defendant and should not have simply reused the same photos. We decline to impose such a requirement. We note that Angela testified at the preliminary hearing that she did not recognize the three photographs from the first lineup when they were shown her during the second lineup. (4b) The fact that defendant was the only person depicted in jail clothing likewise was not unduly suggestive under the circumstances present here. There was no evidence that Angela knew what jail clothing looked like when she made the identification; although on July 18 she had gone to the county jail expecting to view a lineup, she ventured no farther than the lobby and saw no inmates. She indicated she did not notice defendant's clothes when she selected his photograph from the lineup. There were no identifying marks on defendant's clothing; he merely appeared to be wearing a gold shirt with a T-shirt underneath. Defendant also contends that the identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive because Detective Shipp improperly confirmed Angela's tentative identification by telling her, en route to the aborted July 18 lineup, that Willie Johnson was in custody. Defendant reasons she must have assumed that she had selected Willie Johnson's photograph on July 2 and that Willie Johnson would be in the July 22 photo lineup. This contention fails because Angela did not know, and never before the crime had seen, Willie Johnson. No names were visible on the photographs she viewed during either lineup. No one other than Detective Shipp ever showed her photographs of suspects in the case. No one described Willie Johnson to her. Knowing the name Willie Johnson and that Willie Johnson was in custody could not have assisted her in selecting the photograph of the second gunman. Defendant contends that Angela's greater confidence in her identification after the second lineup reflects Detective Shipp's improper confirmation. It more likely stems from the fact that a more recent photograph of defendant was used. None of Detective Shipp's communications with Angela, in our view, constituted improper confirmation of her selection. Defendant also suggests Angela must have understood that she was expected to make a positive identification from the photo lineup on July 22. The admonition, read by Detective Shipp and acknowledged by Angela, belies the contention. We thus conclude that the identification procedures employed in this case were not unnecessarily suggestive. Accordingly, we need not go on to the second step of the Brathwaite test to determine whether the identification itself was nevertheless reliable under the totality of the circumstances.