Opinion ID: 6330739
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Neil v. Biggers Hearing

Text: Warner also argues the trial court erred by refusing to conduct a hearing to determine whether Goolsby's identification of Warner in the crime-scene video violated his due process rights under Biggers. Warner relies on a line of cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that unnecessarily suggestive police-arranged eyewitness identification procedures violate due process and, thus, are inadmissible, unless the trial court determines in a hearing that the identification was nevertheless so reliable that no substantial likelihood of misidentification exists. See Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 228, 237-39, 132 S. Ct. 716, 723-25, 181 L. Ed. 2d 694, 706-07 (2012) (discussing the line of cases and explaining the Supreme Court [s]ynthesiz[ed] them into a two-part test in Biggers); State v. Liverman, 398 S.C. 130, 138, 727 S.E.2d 422, 426 (2012) (reciting Biggers test). Under Biggers, the trial court must first determine whether the police used an 'unnecessarily suggestive' . . . identification procedure[], State v. Wyatt, 421 S.C. 306, 310, 806 S.E.2d 708, 710 (2017) (citing Biggers, 409 U.S. at 198-99, 93 S. Ct. at 381-82, 34 L. Ed. 2d at 410-11), and second, if so, whether the out-ofcourt identification was nevertheless so reliable that no substantial likelihood of misidentification existed, 421 S.C. at 311, 806 S.E.2d at 710 (quoting Liverman, 398 S.C. at 138, 727 S.E.2d at 426). The trial court in this case refused to conduct a Biggers hearing because Goolsby was not an eyewitness. The court stated, I don't believe . . . this is a Biggers situation. You don't have an out-of-court identification [by] an eyewitness. We agree with the trial court. In every case decided by the Supreme Court or by this Court under Biggers and the line of cases that led to it, the witness who made the identification was an eyewitness to the crime itself, a witness who observed the crime take place in real time. The Supreme Court has given no reason to believe it would extend the Biggers analysis beyond eyewitnesses, nor has this Court. In Perry, the Supreme Court prefaced its discussion of the line of cases leading to Biggers by stating, Only when evidence 'is so extremely unfair that its admission violates fundamental conceptions of justice,' have we imposed a constraint tied to the Due Process Clause. 565 U.S. at 237, 132 S. Ct. at 723, 181 L. Ed. 2d at 706 (citations omitted). The dangers of misidentification associated with eyewitness identification that threaten fundamental conceptions of justice are simply not present in a situation like the one in this case. While we agree with Warner the detective's question suggested to Goolsby that Warner is the man in the video, we nevertheless find Warner's due process rights do not require a hearing because Goolsby was not an eyewitness to the crime, and thus, Biggers does not apply. 8 The trial court did not err in denying Warner a hearing as to Goolsby's identification.