Opinion ID: 77432
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Improper Out-of-Court Identification

Text: 48 Smith next claims that the victim's out-of-court identification, which was followed at trial by an in-court identification by the witness, should have been suppressed, because the identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive and created a substantial likelihood of misidentification thereby depriving Smith of his right to due process. The district court refused to suppress this evidence. The standard of review is the same as above: the facts are reviewed for clear error and the district court's application of the law to those facts is reviewed de novo. 49 [C]onvictions 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. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); see also Jones v. Kemp, 794 F.2d 1536, 1539 (11th Cir.1986) (A pretrial identification and subsequent in-court identification may amount to a due process violation if the pretrial procedure was `unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification.' (quoting Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199, 1206 (1967))). Smith, however, does not allege that the in-court identification was tainted by what he considers to be the impermissibly suggestive pretrial identification procedure. See Record, vol. 9, no. 69 at 74-75. Rather, we interpret Smith's argument to be that the identification resulting from the allegedly unconstitutional identification procedure impermissibly bolstered the unchallenged in-court identification and therefore should have been suppressed. As a result, we need not concern ourselves with whether the alleged error was so great as to lead irreparably to a mistaken in-court identification. See Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 198, 93 S.Ct. 375, 382, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972) (While the phrase [`a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification'] was coined as a standard for determining whether an in-court identification would be admissible in the wake of a suggestive out-of-court identification, with the deletion of `irreparable' it serves equally well as a standard for the admissibility of testimony concerning the out-of-court identification itself.). 50 Out-of-court identifications are examined for due process violations using a two-part test: The court must first decide whether the [procedure] was impermissibly suggestive, and if it was suggestive the court must then determine whether the identification procedure created a substantial likelihood of misidentification. United States v. Russo, 796 F.2d 1443, 1452 (11th Cir.1986). Smith contends that the identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive because, at the time of the pretrial identification, the victim was in custody for a probation violation, and was shown several naked pictures of herself, the defendant, and other females. In this context, according to Smith, the victim, not knowing whether she had committed a crime, was likely to say whatever was necessary to avoid further trouble for herself. The district court disagreed with Smith's argument, and we cannot say that there was clear error in any of the court's factual findings that would lead to the conclusion that the procedure was impermissibly suggestive. 51 The district court found that the officers who showed the pictures to the victim only asked whether she was able to identify anyone in any of the pictures. The officers were hoping the victim could identify other girls in the photographs, not just Smith. As such, they never asked the victim if the photographer was in any of the pictures. The district court found that, while looking at the pictures, the victim held up one and spontaneously identified Smith as the photographer. Detective Dickie testified that the victim continued to look through pictures after she had identified Smith and continued to single out Smith from among the pictures as the man who had taken the photographs. Thus, given the totality of circumstances, we cannot say that the fact that the victim was in custody at the time of the identification necessarily transformed an otherwise spontaneous identification into one arising out of an impermissibly suggestive procedure. Because we find that the procedure was not impermissibly suggestive, we need not determine whether the procedure created a substantial likelihood of misidentification. 16