Opinion ID: 2751111
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Collins’s Out-of-Court Identification

Text: ¶21. Flowers claims that the out-of-court photo lineup was unduly suggestive because the photo array was skewed toward Flowers in several ways. He claims that his head was larger than the others and that the other men had lighter complexions, were younger than him, and had varying hairstyles and facial features. We have summarized the standard applied to outof-court identifications as follows: A lineup or series of photographs is impermissibly suggestive if “the accused, when compared with the others, is conspicuously singled out in some manner from the others, either from appearance or statements by an officer.” . . . To be excluded, an out-of-court identification must have resulted from an identification procedure that was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to “a very substantial likelihood of misidentification.” . . . Where the defendant is “the only one depicted with a distinctive feature,” courts usually will find the lineup to be impermissibly suggestive. . . . On the other hand, “minor differences” with the suspects or differences in the photograph backgrounds will not render a lineup impermissibly suggestive. . . . Butler, 102 So. 3d at 264-65 (¶¶ 9-11) (citations omitted). Applying the standard articulated in Butler, we recently held that a photo lineup was not impermissibly suggestive even though 13 the defendant was the only person in the lineup with facial tattoos. Stewart v. State, 131 So. 3d 569, 574 (¶ 16) (Miss. 2014). In Stewart, we concluded: We find that the case sub judice is similar to the cases of White, Foster, and Jones, in which this Court upheld similar identifications. In White, the witness noticed the defendant’s plaited hair and forehead tattoo during the commission of the crime. White v. State, 507 So. 2d 98, 99 (Miss. 1987). This Court upheld the out-of-court and in-court identifications of the defendant even though the defendant was the only suspect in the lineup with plaited hair. Id. at 99-101. The defendant also had a forehead tattoo, which the witness identified at trial. BI at 99-100. In Foster, this Court upheld the out-of-court and in-court identifications of the defendant even though he was the only person in the lineup wearing a fishing hat, where the defendant had worn a fishing hat during the robbery. Foster v. State, 493 So. 2d 1304, 1305-06 (Miss. 1986). Likewise, in Jones, this Court upheld the out-of-court and in-court identifications of the defendant even though he was the only suspect in the photo lineup wearing a hat similar to the one worn by the attacker. Jones v. State, 504 So. 2d 1196, 1199-1200 (Miss. 1987). This Court found that, even though the hat may have played a significant part in the identification, it was not impermissibly suggestive, because the witness had given an accurate description and identified the defendant with great conviction at trial. Id. at 1200. Id. at 573 (¶ 12). ¶22. In the photo array that included Flowers’s photograph, Flowers’s head is slightly larger than the others, as it appears his photo was taken from a closer angle than the others. However, the use of a different photographic technique creates only a minor difference, and that is not enough to render the photo lineup impermissibly suggestive. Batiste v. State, 121 So. 3d 808, 856 (¶ 116) (Miss. 2013). The other characteristics Flowers claims caused the array to be suggestive are not present – three other men have complexions similar to Flowers’s complexion; Flowers appears to be the same age or only slightly older than the other men; two of the other men have hair styles similar to Flowers’s; and three of the other men have facial hair similar to his. Accordingly, Flowers fails to show that the lineup was 14 unduly suggestive. Further, Collins provided a description to police on the day of the murders, and he was confident in his identification of the man he saw in front of Tardy Furniture. The trial court did not err in admitting Collins’s out-of-court identification. Because the lineup was not impermissibly suggestive, we need not consider the Biggers factors for reliability.