Opinion ID: 2604137
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Eyewitness Identifications and Testimony

Text: Defendant raises two issues concerning the admission of the eyewitness testimony associating him with the crime: the trial court's refusal to suppress in-court identifications of defendant by the State's witnesses and the trial judge's failure to give a cautionary jury instruction concerning eyewitness identification. We reject defendant's arguments. Defendant made a motion in limine to suppress the eyewitness testimony. In support of his motion, defendant presented a summary that his counsel had created from the police reports and uncertified copies of the preliminary hearing transcripts. These materials purportedly demonstrated that the eyewitness testimony should have been suppressed. Defendant apparently based the motion on Utah Rule of Evidence 403 and an assertion that improper pretrial identification violated defendant's federal constitutional rights. See Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972). We find no error in the trial judge's rejection of defendant's motion. The trial judge stated that he found no real evidence here of unnecessarily suggestive procedures that took place during any pretrial investigation. In the absence of clear error, we uphold a trial judge's factual assessment underlying a decision to grant or deny a suppression motion. State v. Bullock, 699 P.2d 753, 755 (Utah 1985); State v. Tuttle, 16 Utah 2d 288, 291, 399 P.2d 580, 582, cert. denied, 382 U.S. 872, 86 S.Ct. 129, 15 L.Ed.2d 110 (1965). In this case, the trial judge considered the evidence proferred by the defense with appropriate suspicion. Although not bound by the Rules of Evidence in a suppression hearing, a trial judge must weigh the reliability and probative value of materials presented to aid in the decision to admit or exclude evidence. See Utah R.Evid. 1101, 104(a). In this case, the defense evidence consisted largely of defendant's own summaries of police reports and unofficial transcripts of the preliminary hearings prepared by the public defender's staff. Police reports are not prepared for the purpose of accurately recording the descriptions of a perpetrator given by individual witnesses; rather, they are compiled to aid the police in apprehending the perpetrator and often reflect the product of collective memory as it is gathered by several officers who communicate with each other. Defendant's prepared abstracts of such records are even more suspect because the witnesses' statements had been filtered through yet another recorder, who is not likely to be unbiased. The preliminary hearing reports are similarly suspect because the preparation was done, not by a neutral reporter, but by a party. Further, the trial judge felt that various witnesses' statements which described defendant as Mexican, Iranian, or Italian were not necessarily inconsistent and were not the product of improper police procedure, leaving the issue of inconsistency for cross-examination at trial. The only evidence defendant presented concerning the pretrial identification procedures used by the police was statements of defendant's counsel concerning the array displays and the pictures used in the arrays. [1] Therefore, we think the judge did not err in rejecting defendant's claim that the procedures were unnecessarily suggestive. The trial judge was also correct in refusing to exclude the testimony on the basis of Utah Rule of Evidence 403: Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. We will not overturn the trial court's ruling [on the application of Rule 403] unless the abuse of discretion is so severe that it results in a `likelihood of injustice.' State v. Knowles, 709 P.2d 311, 312 (Utah 1985) (quoting State v. McCardell, 652 P.2d 942, 944 (Utah 1982)). We do not think the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing to exclude the eyewitness identifications. Indeed, we do not see how the eyewitness testimony could fall within the categories of evidence excludable under Rule 403. The eyewitness testimony did not have the inflammatory potential found in the sort of evidence typically excluded under that Rule. See State v. Cloud, 722 P.2d 750 (Utah 1986) (gruesome photographs of a crime victim should have been excluded because the probative value of the photographs was outweighed by the possibility that the jury's passions would be inflamed by the gruesome nature of the crime and would distract them from the issue of the defendant's mental state). Nor could the eyewitness testimony have confused or misled the jury or wasted its time. The eyewitness testimony was the heart of the State's case and did not serve to draw the jury into the type of collateral assessments that Rule 403 is designed to avoid. The trial judge was correct in allowing the jury to assess the credibility of the eyewitness; Rule 403 is not to be used to allow the trial judge to substitute his assessment of the credibility of testimony for that of the jury by excluding testimony simply because he does not find it credible. We next consider defendant's claim that a cautionary instruction should have been given. In State v. Long, 721 P.2d 483 (Utah 1986), we made a detailed analytical consideration of the reliability of eyewitness testimony and concluded that in cases tried from this date forward, trial courts shall give such an instruction whenever eyewitness identification is a central issue in a case and such an instruction is requested by the defense. Id. at 492. This case was, however, tried before Long became law. In reviewing cases tried before Long, we evaluate the defendant's claim under the case law applicable at the time the defendant was tried. State v. Jonas, 725 P.2d 1378, 1380 (Utah 1986). At the time of trial, the giving of a cautionary instruction was left to the discretion of the trial judge under the totality of the circumstances. State v. Reedy, 681 P.2d 1251, 1254 (Utah 1984); see also State v. Jonas, 725 P.2d 1378 (Utah 1986) (summarizing the crucial pre- Long case law). This case presents us with a particularly difficult task in evaluating whether the trial judge abused his discretion. The eyewitness testimony identifying defendant as one of the robbers was equivocal. The jewelry store clerk admitted that she did not see defendant during the robbery because she was restrained in the bathroom by a man she identified as one of the co-defendants. A Los Angeles police officer identified defendant as a man he saw walking in front of the motel where the co-defendants were arrested. The officer admitted that he was on a routine patrol when he saw defendant for a few moments. The officer testified that he had observed defendant only briefly and had no reason to suspect defendant of any criminal activity. The officer admitted that defendant strongly resembled defendant's half brother, whose picture was found in the co-defendants' motel room, and that the officer had only recently learned that the picture was not of defendant. The officer admitted that the photo had been included in photo spreads on the assumption that it was of defendant. The officer's partner, who had a similarly brief glimpse, also identified defendant. Defendant was identified by the owner of the jewelry store, who claimed he saw defendant walking around in the store early on the day of the robbery. However, the store owner identified one of defendant's co-defendants as defendant at trial and then changed his mind and identified defendant. The mother and the daughter who were in a parked car in front of the jewelry store and saw the robbers briefly as they left the store identified defendant, whom they described as bearded. The diner in the restaurant across the street also identified defendant. Finally, the customer who interrupted the robbery testified. She described the man she saw in the front of the store as unbearded. On direct examination, she identified one of the co-defendants as the robber at the front of the store. Under cross-examination, she changed her mind and identified defendant. None of the witnesses had a particularly good opportunity to observe the robbers. The witnesses gave inconsistent and hesitant descriptions, and some witnesses changed their opinion at trial. Furthermore, there exists a substantial possibility that defendant has been confused in this case with his half brother, who closely resembles him. On the other hand, we have never found an abuse of discretion when a judge refused a cautionary instruction in a case with more than one eyewitness, and having decided to apply Long prospectively, we must be cautious in applying the pre- Long case law without reference to our later analysis. Were I writing only for myself and Justice Stewart, I would find an abuse of discretion. However, three of my colleagues are convinced that no abuse of discretion occurred; therefore, defendant's argument must be rejected. We also reject defendant's claim that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. The jury simply chose to believe the eyewitness identifications of defendant.