Opinion ID: 774020
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The District Court's Denial of Habeas

Text: 96 Raheem commenced his present habeas proceeding in August 1996, pursuing his contention that his due process rights were violated because the lineup was unduly suggestive and that the identifications should thus have been excluded. In a Corrected Memorandum and Order dated April 28, 2000, reported at 98 F.Supp.2d 295, the district court denied the petition. Although the court agreed that the lineup was impermissibly suggestive, it concluded that the identifications should be held reliable because there was other evidence of Raheem's guilt. 97 Applying the factors set forth in Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972), the district court found that 98 the identifications simply d[id] not appear solid enough to outweigh the corrupting effect of the suggestive identification itself... especially given that both witnesses acknowledged that the suggestive coat was a factor in their identifications. 99 98 F.Supp.2d at 305 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court went on to state, however, that the Neil v. Biggers factors 100 do not exhaust the possible ways in which identification evidence may prove to be reliable or unreliable.... In my view, another critical factor should be taken into account before an otherwise unassailable jury verdict is set aside in a collateral proceeding: the evidence or lack of evidence that the petitioner is guilty of the crime of which he has been convicted. 101 Id. Applying its proposed rule that other evidence of guilt may make identification testimony reliable, id. at 306, the district court found three sources of corroboration in this case that together are sufficient to justify allowing the jury to decide the credence to be given to the eyewitness testimony, id. at 316. The three sources of corroboration were Raheem's possession of a black leather coat, his confession, and the fact that he was convicted of other murders, showing a propensity... to kill: 102 By far the most important is petitioner's confession, in which he admitted shooting Hill.... Another piece of corroborating evidence is the same thing that created the suggestiveness in the lineup: petitioner's three-quarter-length black leather coat, which he was wearing twenty days after the robbery. This was apparently no run of the mill garment. Arthur Shiloh explained that it was outstanding 'because it wasn't no cheap coat.'... Vincent Cooke also emphasized that the coat was memorable.... While the fact that petitioner was the only one in the lineup wearing such a coat made his identification suggestive, the fact that he had the coat a relatively short time after the robbery provides further corroboration of his guilt. 103 Moreover, in addition to the foregoing evidence, the record demonstrates that petitioner has a propensity not only to kill, but a preference for doing so with a bullet to the head.... The murder of which he was convicted here was the first of four he committed within a twenty-day period.... While propensity evidence may not be admissible at trial because of the danger that the jury may condemn the accused because of other criminal behavior, and not because of the evidence of guilt of the crime charged,... this does not preclude giving such evidence some corroborative weight for present purposes. 104 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The court also found persuasive the facts that Raheem failed to assert his innocence and presented no alibi: 105 The force of the corroborative evidence of guilt is hardly undermined by the absence of an alibi or any kind of a defense case. This is not a question of drawing an adverse inference from petitioner's failure to testify at trial or at the suppression hearing. Instead, it simply reflects the absence of the kind of evidence that would cause one to question whether the eyewitnesses identified the right man.... Not only was such an alibi not offered, but neither petitioner nor his lawyer asserted his innocence, even at sentencing. While both challenged the quality of the eyewitness identifications, neither ever said, They got the wrong man! 106 Id. at 317. In light of its corroborative findings, the court determined that 107 [p]articularly in this unusual case, in which the suggestive identification procedure was inadvertent -and possibly not even unnecessarily suggestive--it would be bizarre to ignore such compelling evidence of guilt and grant the writ even though there is no reason for concern about the injustice that results from the conviction of an innocent person [which] has long been at the core of our criminal justice system... and which underlies the due process exclusionary rule at issue here. 108 Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The court also found it irrelevant that evidence of the confession and of Raheem's predisposition to kill with a bullet to the head, was not heard by the jury, noting that the court's corroboration rule was not a harmless error analysis but was instead an analysis of a preliminary ruling on the admissibility of evidence. Id. 109 The district court granted a certificate of appealability; this appeal followed.