Opinion ID: 2258811
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of the Out-of-Court Identification

Text: Although the murder of Torey Lawrence occurred in August of 1993, Hodge did not emerge as a witness until months later. On March 24, 1994, upon being shown a photo array by one of the investigating officers, Hodge selected a photograph of Scales, whom he called Reds, as the person who shot Lawrence, although he did not know Scales's given name. [2] Later that same day Hodge testified before a grand jury about the murder of Lawrence. At trial Detective Vacin testified about the photo identification procedures and testified that Hodge selected a photo of Scales as the shooter. On direct examination Hodge described and affirmed his prior identification of Reds in the photo array at the U.S. Attorney's office, stating that he did not know that person's given name. He also made an in-court identification of Scales as the person who shot Lawrence. On cross-examination, however, Hodge testified that: (1) he did not know the name or nickname of the shooter, but that he did know Scales and knew Scales's nickname was Reds, (2) he was pressured or threatened by police to say that Reds was the shooter, and (3) in the evening after the shooting he spoke by telephone to Scales and told Scales about the shooting of Lawrence. In response to the government's questions on redirect, Hodge recanted his identification of Scales, testifying that he could not really say the shooter was Scales. Then he stated that he lied to the grand jury, and that he did not see who shot Lawrence. Scales argues, in light of Hodge's equivocation on cross-examination and his recantation on redirect of his identification of Scales as the shooter, that it was error for the court to allow the government to introduce his prior identification of Scales for any purpose other than impeachment, and that the court erred by not immediately instructing the jury that Hodge's grand jury testimony, which included the prior identification statement, could be considered only with respect to Hodge's credibility. We reject the first contention for the reasons discussed below and deal with the second in Part III. Scales contends that Hodge's prior identification of Scales was inadmissible as substantive evidence because Hodge destroyed the predicate for its admissibility when he testified on redirect that he lied before the grand jury and that he did not see who shot Lawrence. As Scales correctly observes, we have held that evidence of a prior identification is not properly admissible when the declarant is uncertain of, or recants, the prior identification at trial. See Fletcher v. United States, 524 A.2d 40, 43 (D.C.1987) (witness's repudiation at trial of his prior identification of the defendant rendered the earlier statement inadmissible hearsay); In re L.D.O., supra, 400 A.2d at 1057 (prior identification by witness is rendered unreliable when the witness testifies to significant doubt about the identification); [3] cf. Riley v. United States, 647 A.2d 1165, 1171 n. 13 (D.C.1994) (prior identification exception applies when witness does not repudiate his prior out-of-court identification and is available for cross-examination on the point). However, none of these cases addressed the unusual circumstances presented in this case. In each of our previous cases where we held that it was error to allow testimony concerning the earlier identification, the witness expressed significant doubts about his prior identification, but did not in any way identify the defendant as the perpetrator of the offense. Here, Hodge made an in-court identification of Scales as the shooter, and he both affirmed his prior identification during direct examination and repudiated it during redirect examination. We are persuaded that Hodge's identification of Scales in direct examination provided the necessary predicate for admission of Hodge's pretrial identification statement, and that this predicate was not fatally undermined by Hodge's later recantation during redirect. We were faced with a similar question in Payne v. United States, 516 A.2d 484 (D.C.1986), where the witness identified the appellants as the robbers on direct examination, but on cross-examination recanted his testimony. On redirect, the government attempted to rehabilitate the witness's testimony given on direct but was not successful. Payne argued that the eyewitness's direct testimony implicating him must be disregarded in its entirety because the witness later recanted. Id. at 492-93. We disagreed: Contrary to appellants' assertions, [the witness'] recantation on cross-examination did not make his testimony, directly implicating appellants ... incredible as a matter of law. Rather . . . conflicts created by a witness' recantation, like other internal inconsistencies within a witness' testimony, are factual questions for the jury to resolve.. . . [W]here a witness recants, the trier of fact must decide whether to accept as true the witness' original testimony or revised testimony. Id. at 493. While we recognize that the admissibility of out-of-court identification statements was not at issue in Payne, we think Payne 's reasoning applies with equal force to a trial court's determination of whether the necessary predicate has been established to allow a witness's prior identification statement, when the witness at trial both affirms and then recants the identification. For this reason we conclude that the trial court may accept as credible, for purposes of determining whether the prior identification exception to the hearsay rule applies, the witness's original testimony. We believe the defendant in these situations is adequately protected from the dangers of hearsay evidence by his opportunity to cross-examine the witness about his change in testimony. See Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 272, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 1956-57, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); In re L.D.O., supra, 400 A.2d at 1057; Morris v. United States, 398 A.2d 333, 338 (D.C.1978); Clemons v. United States, 133 U.S.App. D.C. 27, 39-40, 408 F.2d 1230, 1242-43 (1968) (en banc). In fact, it was precisely the appellant's opportunity to cross-examine Hodge that eventually resulted in Hodge's recantation on redirect. In addition, although not a requirement for its admissibility, there was corroboration of Hodge's testimony identifying Scales. Detective Vacin testified that Hodge had identified Scales from the photo array, and Hodge never directly recanted his testimony on direct examination that he selected the shooter in the photo array. We held in Murphy v. United States, 670 A.2d 1361, 1366 (D.C. 1996), that such evidence is sufficient to constitute corroboration of an extra-judicial identification. Therefore Detective Vacin's testimony can be taken into account on the question of whether the prior identification evidence was admissible. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court did not err in admitting evidence of Hodge's prior identification of Scales because the predicates for admissibility were sufficiently established when Hodge's trial testimony was subject to cross-examination and both Hodge and Detective Vacin affirmed the identification at trial.