Opinion ID: 2649691
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dessureault Hearing

Text: ¶28 Gina was unable to identify Forde in a photo line-up, but when Gina and Forde both attended a pretrial hearing on September 27, 2010, Gina recognized Forde as the female intruder. Forde moved to preclude any in-court identification of her based on this pretrial identification. Following a hearing held pursuant to State v. Dessureault, 104 Ariz. 380, 453 P.2d 951 (1969), the trial court concluded that the identification was made in suggestive circumstances, but denied the motion because Gina’s identification was nevertheless reliable. We defer to the court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, but we review the court’s ruling on the constitutionality of a pretrial identification de novo as a mixed question of law and fact. State v. Moore, 222 Ariz. 1, 7 ¶ 17, 213 P.3d 150, 156 (2009). ¶29 Forde contends that the trial court violated her due process rights by refusing to continue the Dessureault hearing to permit additional witness interviews, precluding evidence at the hearing, and then ruling that Gina’s identification was reliable and therefore admissible. We reject these arguments because the court was not required to conduct a Dessureault hearing, and therefore any error was harmless. ¶30 In Perry v. New Hampshire, the Supreme Court clarified — as this Court had previously held — that only state action requires a Dessureault-type hearing. 132 S. Ct. 716, 730 (2012) (“[T]he Due Process Clause does not require a preliminary judicial inquiry into the reliability of an eyewitness identification when the identification was not procured under unnecessarily suggestive circumstances arranged by law enforcement.”); see also State v. Williams, 166 Ariz. 132, 137, 800 P.2d 1240, 1245 (1987). The Court reasoned that decisions requiring pretrial judicial scrutiny “turn on the presence of state action and aim to deter police from rigging identification procedures, for example, at a lineup, showup, or photograph array.” 132 S. Ct. at 721. Significantly, the Court concluded that “[t]he fallibility of eyewitness evidence does not, without the taint of improper state conduct, warrant a due process rule requiring a trial court to screen such evidence for reliability before allowing the jury to assess its creditworthiness.” Id. at 728. ¶31 Forde concedes that the confrontation between Forde and Gina at the pretrial hearing did not result from state action, and the record 9 STATE V. FORDE Opinion of the Court supports the concession. Gina routinely attended pretrial hearings, but Forde generally waived her appearance. Nothing suggests that the State asked Gina to attend the September 27 hearing to see Forde. Indeed, Gina waited about six weeks to tell the State she had recognized Forde. Because there was no state action involved in Gina’s pretrial identification of Forde, there was no due process concern, and the trial court was not required to hold a Dessureault hearing. ¶32 Forde attempts to avoid Perry and Williams by arguing that because the Dessureault hearing was held, the court was required to comply with due process. She cites cases concerning “state-created” rights, which require due process once invoked. See Conn. Bd. of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 463 (1981) (“A state-created right can, in some circumstances, beget yet other rights to procedures essential to the realization of the parent right.”); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556–58 (1974) (holding that depriving inmates of state-created right to good-time credits in prison disciplinary proceedings requires due process). But the Dessureault hearing was not a state-created right. The fact that the court granted Forde’s request for the hearing did not resurrect due process rights deemed inapplicable by Perry and Williams. ¶33 Forde also relies on State v. Nordstrom, 200 Ariz. 229, 241 ¶ 26, 25 P.3d 717, 729 (2001), overruled in part on other grounds by State v. Ferrero, 229 Ariz. 239, 274 P.3d 509 (2012), to argue that due process concerns can sometimes be implicated “in the absence of state action” when “evidence lacking in foundation reaches the jury under circumstances that do not afford a defendant an opportunity to point out its weaknesses.” The concerns set forth in Nordstrom are not implicated here, however, because Forde thoroughly cross-examined Gina about the inconsistencies between her initial description of the female perpetrator and Forde’s appearance, as well as Gina’s inability to identify Forde in the photo line-up. Further, Forde presented expert testimony challenging the identification. ¶34 In a related argument, Forde asserts that the trial court erred by failing to give a cautionary instruction to the jury regarding eyewitness identification, as suggested by Perry. Forde waived this issue by not raising it until her reply brief. 10 STATE V. FORDE Opinion of the Court