Opinion ID: 2512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The State Court's Application of Clearly Established Federal Law Governing the Admission of Eyewitness Identifications Was Reasonable.

Text: Applying the standards outlined in the previous sections to the issue raised in Brisco's petition, we hold that it was a reasonable application of clearly established federal law for the New York Court of Appeals [6] to conclude that the challenged showup procedure was not unnecessarily suggestive. Our determination of whether a court has unreasonably applied a legal standard depends in large measure on the specificity of the standard in question. This is so because [a]pplying a general standard to a specific case can demand a substantial element of judgment, Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004), while a standard defined with exacting specificity can be implemented almost mechanically. For that reason, [t]he more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations. Id. The determination of whether an identification procedure violates due process is governed by an extraordinarily general standard that hews closely to the facts of a particular case and turns on a court's judgment in evaluating those facts. See, e.g., Simmons, 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967 (declining to impose a blanket prohibition on a specific identification procedure and holding instead that each case must be considered on its own facts). As noted above, this standard calls for an evaluation of the totality of the circumstances, Stovall, 388 U.S. at 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, in order to determine whether an identification procedure unnecessarily creates a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification, Simmons, 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967. Pursuant to this standard, a court must identify the circumstances giving rise to the procedure, gauge the exigencies that the circumstances entailed, determine whether the identification procedure was warranted under the circumstances, and decide whether the suggestiveness was so severe that it produced irreparable damage. This fact-dependent standard demand[s] a substantial element of judgment, Yarborough, 541 U.S. at 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, in its application. A court applying this standard to the facts of a specific case is therefore entitled to significant leeway when we review its decision for reasonableness. Id. The clearly established [f]ederal law, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), at issue in Brisco's appeal is a fairly inclusive standardwhether an identification was unnecessarily suggestive, Stovall, 388 U.S. at 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, and created a a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification, Simmons, 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967. In light of this permissive standard, and the leeway to which courts are entitled under Yarborough, 541 U.S. at 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, we cannot conclude that the decision of the New York Court of Appeals was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. New York's highest court rejected Brisco's challenge to the identification procedure on two grounds. First, the court concluded that the [identification] procedure[ ] used w[as] reasonable under the circumstances because it took place at the scene of the crime, within an hour of the commission of the crime, and in the context of a continuous, ongoing investigation. Brisco, 99 N.Y.2d at 597, 758 N.Y.S.2d 262, 788 N.E.2d 611. The circumstances of the ongoing investigation, in the court's view, made the procedure reasonable. Second, the Court of Appeals concluded that the identification procedure was not unduly suggestive, because Kemper, the eyewitness, initially and independently identified [Brisco,] relying on his height, hair color, and build. Id. Kemper's reference to Brisco's physical traitsand not the maroon shortsconfirmed to the Court of Appeals that the procedure was not unduly suggestive. In light of our own decisions affirming the admission of identifications obtained through similar procedures and under similar circumstances, we see no basis to conclude that the decision of the New York Court of Appeals to deny Brisco's challenge was unreasonable. A comparison of this case with our decision in Bautista, 23 F.3d 726, is instructive. In Bautista, the following showup identification procedure occurred shortly after a drug raid: a series of suspects w[ere] presented [individually]... in handcuffs [to the eyewitness]; at night; in the custody of police officers; with [their] face[s] lit by flashlights; and in the presence of [a police officer] who, each time the [eyewitness] identified a suspect, radioed to his fellow officers, `it's a hit.' 23 F.3d at 730. On direct appeal from his conviction in the district court, one of the defendants argued that the showup procedure was unnecessarily suggestive. We disagreed. Judge Oakes, writing for the Court, concluded that [t]he fact that the suspects were handcuffed, in the custody of law enforcement officers, and illuminated by flashlights also did not render the pre-trial identification procedure unnecessarily suggestive. In this case, handcuffs, custody, and flashlights were all necessary incidents of an on-the-scene identification immediately following a night-time narcotics raid. Because the on-the-scene identification was necessary to allow the officers to release the innocent, the incidents of that identification were also necessary. Id. Indeed, we stated that rather than excoriate the law enforcement officials involved for conducting an unduly suggestive procedure, one might commend them for their immediate efforts to ascertain and release innocent people. Id. at 730 n. 6. Like Bautista, the showup here was of course suggestive, but it is not unreasonable for the state courts to have concluded that it was not unnecessarily suggestive. In Bautista, we instructed law enforcement officials that where an officer has or should have doubts whether a detained suspect is in fact the person sought, the officer must make immediate reasonable efforts to confirm the suspect's identity. Id. at 730. This instruction supported the use of a showup identification procedure to immediately confirm the identity of the detained suspects in Bautista. Here, the procedure enabled the officers to determine whether they had their man while the witness's memory was still fresh and while the maroon shorts were still available as evidence. In the event that their suspicions were confirmed by the eyewitness, the showup would allow the officers to determine whether to seize the shorts and avoid wasting police resources on a search for other suspects. [7] Absent an immediate showup of Brisco and an identification of the shorts, probable cause to seize the shorts was in doubt, leaving the officers open to substantial and legitimate criticism if the shorts later disappeared. If no identification was made at the showup, the officers could resume their search for the offender. In this case, as in Bautista, the officers undertook immediate, reasonable efforts to confirm Brisco's identity and identify the shorts by conducting a showup identification procedure. In light of our approvalon direct reviewof a showup that (1) took place under similarly suggestive circumstances and (2) presented the same need for rapid verification by an eyewitness, we cannot say on habeas reviewthat the decision of the New York Court of Appeals was an unreasonable application of[ ] clearly established [f]ederal law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Every state court that considered this matter found the showup to be untainted by the alleged suggestiveness of the circumstances attending Kemper's identification of Brisco, and these courts therefore paid little or no attention to the Biggers factors going to overall reliability. Because the District Court found the showup to be unnecessarily suggestive, it, unlike the state courts, reached and discussed the Biggers factors at length, concluding that the identification was unreliable. Even assuming arguendo that the showup was unnecessarily suggestive, we respectfully disagree that the identification was unreliable. With regard to Kemper's opportunity to view the perpetrator and her degree of attentionthe first two Biggers factors the District Court was hampered, as are we, by the parties' failure to explore in the state court hearing the initial encounter in which Kemper viewed the burglar. The District Court concluded that there was, therefore, no available indicia of reliability, Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 316, as to these factors. However, there is no presumption that an eyewitness who gives a description had an inadequate opportunity to observe the elements that make up that description. In the normal course, an eyewitness can be expected to describe details to the extent that he or she was able to observe them. With regard to degree of attention, viewing an uninvited stranger leaving one's house is likely to attract close attention. The District Court found the third Biggers factor, the accuracy of the prior description, to weigh against the prosecution because none of the various age descriptions fit Briscoeighteen or twenty, or in his twenties, as against thirty-eightand because McGraff, the other person in the house where Brisco was found, also fit the overall description but attracted absolutely no suspicion on the officers' part. Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 316. We reach the opposite conclusion. The physical description provided by the victim substantially matched petitioner's characteristics insofar as Brisco is a white male, 5 feet 8 inches tall, stocky, and has brown hair. See id. at 316; Mar. 28, 2000 Hr'g Tr. at 62. Brisco was also found with a pair of maroon shorts, which he acknowledged belonged to him and which appeared to have been recently worn by him. While he had put on a different pair of shorts of a different color by the time he was asked to go the crime scene, he was not wearing a shirt; so his manner of dress corresponded to the victim's description of the perpetrator. The District Court concluded that it was very telling, Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 316, that the initial reports stated that the perpetrator was either eighteen to twenty years old or in his twenties, while Brisco was, in fact, thirty-eight at the time of his arrest. We do not ascribe the same weight to this discrepancy because, as a general matter, witnesses' powers of observation [are] greater than their powers of description, Mysholowsky v. New York, 535 F.2d 194, 198 (2d Cir.1976), and age can be a particularly difficult characteristic to describe accurately. In addition, the accuracy of Kemper's description is bolstered by the testimony of one of the officers that Brisco appeared to be thirty years old, younger than his actual age. There is a variance, therefore, but not of fatal significance. [8] Finally, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the decision of the officers not to view McGraff as a suspect in light of their observation that McGraff was sort of pouchy ... [and not] a well-built person, a body type inconsistent with Kemper's description of the perpetrator as well-built. We conclude therefore that this discrepancy alone is insufficient to undermine the accuracy of Kemper's prior description of the perpetrator. See Dunnigan v. Keane, 137 F.3d 117, 130 (2d Cir.1998) (the reliability of the identification was not undermined by the fact that the initial description of the suspect was that he was in his mid-twenties while the defendant was in fact in his midthirties). With regard to Kemper's level of certaintythe fourth Biggers factorthe District Court found this favored Brisco because she was seventy-eight years old, and was fifteen to fifty feet from Brisco when she identified him and the shorts. See Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 316. The court concluded that, without the shorts, Kemper may have come to a different conclusion. We disagree. The District Court's conclusion is based entirely on speculation. Elderly people are not necessarily unable to observe, or to describe people and events. Moreover, fifteen to fifty feet is hardly a great distance. We also do not share the District Court's wariness of Brisco's holding the maroon shorts at the time of the identification. See Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 315. To be sure, the shorts added to the level of certainty but in a very legitimate way. [9] Brisco's holding of the maroon shorts singled him out as the suspected burglar only if Kemper was also able to identify the shorts as the ones seen on the burglar. Underlying Brisco's arguments and the District Court's concerns regarding the shorts is, therefore, the assumption that because they were indeed the shorts worn by the burglar, their presence increased the chance that Kemper would identify Brisco as the perpetrator. But the presence of the shorts offered an opportunity either to double check Brisco's guilt or to exculpate him. Shorts come in different styles and lengths, and there are varying shades of maroon. Indeed, the shorts in question were referred to at the hearing as dark brown as well as maroon. There was no guarantee that Kemper would identify the shorts, and, while the presence of the shorts certainly reinforced the already conspicuous suspicions of the officers as to Brisco, her identification of them adds to, rather than detracts from, the reliability of her identification of Brisco. The District Court also determined that defense counsel's lack of an opportunity to cross-examine Kemper provided another basis to conclude that the level-of-certainty factor favored Brisco. See Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 316. The state court evidentiary hearing focused exclusively on evidence regarding the suggestiveness of the showup. It dealt with the circumstances surrounding the police encounters with Brisco at 66 Mills Pond Road and the subsequent identification of Brisco by Kemper. It did not explore Kemper's viewing of the burglar at the time of the crime or the Biggers factors going to reliability. The three officers were called as witnesses because they were the officers who were involved in bringing Brisco to Kemper's house for identification. Brisco's counsel was content with these limited proceedings and chose deliberately neither to call witnesses nor probe the Biggers factors. Brisco's counsel was content to leave inquiries as to the independent reliability of the identification under Biggers to a later time, if and when Kemper was called as a witness to make an in-court identification, as reflected in the following colloquy. MS. SCARPATI: Your Honor, I'd just like to point out, with regards to the show-up, that if in fact the Court does allow this to come into evidence, that it's suggested, really there's no independent, I believe, source that Ms. Kemper, should she come in here and testify at a later date at a trial, be able to identify Mr. Brisco, in light of what the police officers and Det. McNeil had suggested, and I would ask that if Ms. Kemper came forward and did testify at a subsequent trial, that she be precluded from offering any evidence pointing out the defendant as the individual. THE COURT: Unless there was an independent source hearing prior to the trial or during the trial itself. Yes? MS. SCARPATI: Okay. As the Court knows, I will be making various motions after this, because of the time frame. Mar. 28, 2000 Tr. 151-52. This was hardly an unreasonable choice. Pursuit of evidence regarding the Biggers factors risked bolstering the state's case and a ruling that might lead to the admission of the showup identification corroborated by an in-court identification, leaving Brisco with no avenues of defense or plea bargaining leverage well before trial. [10] The final Biggers factorthe time between the crime and identificationweighs against Brisco. The identification was made an hour and ten minutes after the burglary, while the events and appearance of the burglar were fresh in Kemper's mind and well within permissible time frames established in our cases. See, e.g., United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88, 125-26 (2d Cir.1998) (approximately one week); Dunnigan v. Keane, 137 F.3d 117, 129 (2d Cir.1998) (three days); Gonzalez v. Hammock, 639 F.2d 844, 848 (2d Cir.1980) (about one hour). Even if the showup was unnecessarily suggestive, therefore, we conclude that the Biggers factors favor the state and that the showup identification was independently reliable. While we reach this conclusion based on the five specific factors prescribed in Biggers, these factors do not necessarily exhaust the possible ways in which identification evidence may prove to be reliable or unreliable. Indeed, the Supreme Court was careful to say that the factors to be considered include the five named ones. See Manson, 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243; Biggers, 409 U.S. at 199, 93 S.Ct. 375. Thus, [t]o say that the general due process standard established in Manson [and Biggers ] must be applied to the identification testimony in cases like the one before us still leaves state courts, in a habeas context, free to adopt any number of non- Biggers procedures designed to ensure the reliability of such testimony. Kennaugh v. Miller, 289 F.3d 36, 47 (2d Cir.2002). One example of such alternative methods to which we have made reference is a sixth factor in the Biggers analysis [that] looked to whether sufficient independent evidence of the defendant's guilt existed to support the reliability of the identification. Id. The District Court here acknowledged that [a] sixth factor not utilized in Biggers, `corroborating evidence of guilt,' has been recognized by another court in this District as an `objectively reasonable application of Supreme Court law.' Dist. Ct. Op., 376 F.Supp.2d at 317 (citing Vasquez v. Poole, 331 F.Supp.2d 145, 157-58 (E.D.N.Y.2004)). Nevertheless, the District Court concluded that the record in this case contains little or no corroborating evidence of guilt. Id. at 318. Our review of the record leads us to the opposite conclusion. Specifically, Brisco was first encountered by law enforcement officers a few doors (or less than a tenth of a mile) north of, and across the street from, the residence at which the burglary took place. Indeed, the victim said that after she screamed, the perpetrator, wearing maroon shorts but no shirt, ran in the very direction of the house in which Brisco was found. More than that, the officers found a wet pair of maroon shorts in that house and circumstantial evidence that Brisco had only recently been wearing them. In addition, Brisco admitted that the shorts were his and later admitted that he committed the crime in question. If this was not compelling enough evidence of the reliability of the eyewitness identification, the record demonstrates that Brisco has a propensity to engage in burglaries. Indeed, the burglary of which he was convicted here was the last of five for which he was apprehended and convicted. While propensity evidence, although plainly relevant, 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, William Payson Richardson & Jerome Prince, Prince, Richardson on Evidence § 4-501, at 175 (Richard T. Farrell ed., 11th ed.1995); see also 2 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 404.10[1] (Joseph M. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed.2001), we have recognized its relevance in other analogous contexts. Thus, if the issue here was the admissibility of evidence obtained as the result of an allegedly illegal search and seizure, evidence of prior convictions inadmissible at trial would be a relevant consideration in determining probable cause. See United States v. Wagner, 989 F.2d 69, 73 (2d Cir.1993). Indeed, in a case involving the existence of probable cause, based largely on information provided by an informant, the Supreme Court held that evidence that petitioner was known by the police to be a user of drugs made the charge against him much less subject to scepticism than would be such a charge against one without such a history. Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 271, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980). So too here. The prior robbery and burglary conviction, along with the other corroborative evidence, made the eyewitness identification much less susceptible to a charge of unreliability than it would otherwise be. Although not ruling it out entirely, we have held that it is improper to consider such corroborative evidence of guilt as a sixth factor in determining the independent reliability of an eyewitness identification. See Kennaugh v. Miller, 289 F.3d 36, 47-48 (2d Cir.2002) (Although we have recently rejected this `sixth factor' approach as a matter of federal law in this circuit, choosing instead a harmless error approach, Raheem v. Kelly, 257 F.3d 122, 140 (2d Cir.2001), it seems likely that under the AEDPA, a state court that used a `sixth factor' analysis would be applying the Manson requirements in a perfectly reasonable way.). Because here, as in Kennaugh, the state courts did not use a sixth factor analysis, we have no occasion to pursue this issue further. Instead, as the Supreme Court has done, we ... acknowledge [this factor as one of the] other aspects of this case, which, although peripheral, certainly do not detract from our decision. Gonzalez v. Hammock, 639 F.2d 844, 848 (2d Cir.1980) (citing Manson, 432 U.S. at 116, 97 S.Ct. 2243).