Opinion ID: 1618817
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: suggestiveness of pretrial identification procedures

Text: Defendant also urges that the trial court erred in allowing the in-court identifications of defendant by Peters, Officer Chandler and Cecil McDonald because they were based on impermissibly suggestive pretrial identification procedures. The Supreme Court held in Simmons v. United States, 1968, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247, that each case must be considered on its own facts, and    convictions based on eyewitness identification at trial following a pretrial identification by photograph will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. at 971, 19 L.Ed.2d at 1253. The same rule is applied by the Court when the pretrial identification is made at a police showup. Neil v. Biggers, 1972, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401. We find that the pretrial photographic identification of the defendant by Peters was not so impermissibly suggestive that the in-court identification should be rendered inadmissible. The officers merely asked Peters if he remembered the person identified as fare number 20 on the log for April 18 and 19, 1975, then handed him five or six photographs in a bunch and asked Peters if he recalled any of those people as being that fare. There was nothing unduly suggestive in the procedure used or in the photos themselves. The pretrial identifications by Officer Chandler and Cecil McDonald, on the other hand, were not pretrial identification procedures as contemplated by the cases. The only time these witnesses saw the defendant between the date of the crime and the beginning of the trial was at a suppression hearing requested by the defendant. The reason underlying the exclusionary rule is to police the police; it does not apply to a situation such as this one where defendant requests a pretrial hearing concerning identification, knowing witnesses will be there to attempt identification and where he will be represented by counsel.