Opinion ID: 1898380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: The Perona identification

Text: William Perona was at the liquor store the night Compton was shot. He noticed a suspicious-looking black male in the store. His identification did not match that given by Johnson. He did not learn of the shooting until December 29, when he read about it in the newspaper. He told the police that he had been in the store around 8:30 p.m. He said that before going into the store, he saw that the winning lottery number for the day had been posted, which meant that he could have been at the store no earlier than 8:20 p.m., the time Compton closed out the lottery machine. He could not have been at the store later than 8:35 p.m., when another customer discovered Compton. Perona told the police that the suspicious-looking man was heavy-set, with a long brown or grey coat. The detective did not believe that Perona was correct about the time he had been in the store. He arranged for Perona to be hypnotized. While under hypnosis, Perona said that he had been in the store just after 8:00 p.m. and had left before the winning lottery number had been posted. Perona later became a relevant witness when Paul Pettigrew, a jail-house informant, said that defendant told him that a cousin had been involved in the Holiday Liquor Store robbery and that a man who was later hypnotized by the prosecutor had run into the cousin-accomplice at the entrance to the store. The prosecution then used Perona's statement in its opening statement to bolster the credibility of Pettigrew because only the killer could have known what Pettigrew knew. The defense moved for a mistrial on the ground that the State had tampered with Perona as a witness by hypnotizing him. But when the court denied this motion, the defense called Perona. He testified that when he arrived at the store shortly before 8:00 p.m., consistent with his post-hypnotic story, as he was walking out of the store, another man walked in. The man was wearing a dark trench coat with white dress shoes and a pull-over hat. He had a mustache and beard, and was in his thirties. He said that the man's right hand was in his pocket and his left hand at his side. Perona said he drove away, and when he drove back, he saw police cars outside. He estimated that he had left the store and passed by again around 8:10 p.m. The defense offered a witness to show that the hypnosis had impaired Perona's memory and destroyed exculpatory evidence. The judge ruled that this evidence would have the effect of impeaching the credibility of defendant's own witness.