Opinion ID: 2287985
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Validity of in-court identification

Text: The next contention is that Mr. Gallant's in-court identification over the defendant's objection was in violation of the defendant's due process rights, because it was tainted by an earlier out-of-court identification. Again, we disagree. At trial below, the argument was that at the earlier out-of-court identification there was no attorney present at the lineup representing the defendant to observe the fairness under which the identification was being conducted. Reliance was being placed upon United States v. Wade, 1967, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed. 2d 1149 and Gilbert v. California, 1967, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178. Since the trial below, the United States Supreme Court in Kirby v. Illinois, 1972, 406 U.S. 682, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 32 L.Ed.2d 411, and this Court in State v. Boyd, 1972, Me., 294 A.2d 459 and in State v. Northup, Me., 1973, 303 A.2d 1, have now settled the issue that a lineup conducted prior to the bringing of formal criminal charges is not a critical stage of the prosecution at which the Sixth Amendment right to counsel applies. Furthermore, the pre-trial lineup at which the defendant was confronted with the victim in no way violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the totality of the circumstances surrounding the lineup the confrontation was not unnecessarily suggestive nor conductive to irreparable mistaken identification. It satisfied the substantive protections under the Due Process Clause. See, Stovall v. Denno, 1967, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199. Indeed, the record before the Court taken in the absence of the jury reveals that the defendant was in custody in the county jail charged with an unrelated offense, and that Mr. Gallant was asked by the investigating officer to come to the jail and view a man that fits somewheres (sic) the description. This was some four days following the robbery. At the jail he was directed to view four men in a wire enclosed area under very good lighting conditions. Three of the men were bare to the waist while the other (not the defendant) had a shirt on. The defendant was dressed in the same way as two of the three other persons in the enclosure and in civilian clothes. The person whose clothing was noticeably different from the others was not the defendant. There was no suggestion to Mr. Gallant by the officers that they suspected any particular person in that group. He identified the defendant as the robber, even though the defendant did not have a beard such as the robber had on the evening of the robbery. The ruling of the Justice below that the lineup identification procedure was conducted fairly and without violation of the defendant's due process rights is fully supported by the record and the defendant's contention that the in-court identification was inadmissible for unconstitutional taint from pre-trial lineup identification is without merit. Moreover, the in-court identification was made under ground rules suggested by the defendant. At his request, the defendant was permitted to be seated with the spectators until the identification was made. Mr. Gallant, stepping down from the witness box and going around the courtroom, identified the defendant as the robber  that man, the second one in from the back (pointing)  . The Court then in the absence of the jury indicated for the record, with no objections by the defendant, that in the area where the defendant was seated at the time he was identified were five other males, approximately in their 20's or 30's, of general build and size descriptions. Thus, the totality of the record, which shows that Mr. Gallant had the opportunity to see the robber on two occasions on the night of July 29, 1971 under very favorable conditions for a combined period of observation of more than ten minutes, when viewed in the light of the in-court identification of Mr. Emery amongst the spectators, demonstrates that Mr. Gallant's in-court identification was based on a source independent from the pre-trial lineup identification and would have sustained its admissibility in evidence even if the pre-trial identification had been improperly conducted.