Opinion ID: 2222943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the application of wade to photographic identification procedures in michigan

Text: This Court has not heretofore ruled on the right to counsel at post-apprehension photographic showups. People v King, 384 Mich 310 (1970), dealt with corporeal identification following uncounseled identification by photograph but the question of the right to counsel was not presented. The question was resolved under the Simmons-Stovall standard of due process and avoidance of impermissibly suggestive procedures. Id, 313. Our Court of Appeals, however, follows the rule that there is a right to have counsel present at a photographic identification of an accused who is in custody. See People v Cotton, 38 Mich App 763 (1972) overruling People v Wilkins, 36 Mich App 143 (1971); People v Robert Thomas, 36 Mich App 190, 193 (1971); People v John Martin, 37 Mich App 621, 628 (1972); People v Fossey, 41 Mich App 174, 182 (1972). See also, People v Rowell, 14 Mich App 190, 198 (1968) (concurring opinion of LEVIN, J.); People v Adams, 19 Mich App 131, 133, n 1 (1969); People v Greer, 29 Mich App 203, 206 (1970). [15] We approve. In Cotton, supra, defendant had been arrested and two corporeal lineups were held with defendant's counsel present. Both lineups produced identifications by both witnesses of persons other than defendant. Defendant's car was impounded but defendant was released. After his release one witness identified defendant from a group of pictures shown her by the police without counsel present. Defendant was asked to return to the police station and a third lineup was held with counsel present in which the witness identified defendant. Judge JOHN H. GILLIS, after noting that the dangers in photographic identification are at least as great or greater than in corporeal, wrote for the panel: [W]e hold that an accused being held in custody is entitled to be represented by counsel at any photographic identification proceeding. 38 Mich App 763, 768. The Court went on to apply the rule to the case where defendant Cotton was not in custody because the investigation had focused on defendant: Turning to the photographic display in the present case, we are of the opinion that this was no longer an in-the-field identification. Its purpose was to build a case against the defendant by eliciting identification evidence, not to extinguish a case against an innocent bystander. Id, 769-770. Cotton and the other cases holding there is a right to counsel in photographic identification recognize that Wade was founded on well recognized principles of social science. The concurring opinion of Judge LEVIN in People v Rowell, 14 Mich App 190, 197 (1968), is the basis for the later Michigan cases on this issue such as Cotton, supra . In Rowell, Judge LEVIN considers the problem as follows: The photographic identification stage is as critical as the lineup stage, perhaps more so. The danger of misidentification at the photographic identification stage is as great, perhaps greater. Just as the facts and circumstances of a lineup identification cannot be readily reconstructed at trial   , so too the facts and circumstances of a photographic identification preceding the lineup cannot later be readily reconstructed. I am persuaded, and this is the reason I write to state my separate views, that on principle photographic identification should be prohibited where the defendant is in custody unless the witness is physically incapacitated from going to a place where a lineup can be conducted.    And in that rare situation where photographs may properly be displayed of an accused person already in custody, the accused person in entitled to be represented by counsel at the photographic identification stage for the reasons expressed in Wade and Gilbert. 14 Mich App 190, 198-199. (Footnotes omitted, emphasis added.) As the citation in Rowell, supra, indicates, the authorities which persuaded Judge LEVIN are Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases (1965) and the extensive references quoted and cited therein. In all, 8 of the 13 Court of Appeals Judges [16] plus 2 visiting Judges [17] have had occasion to consider this matter. All of them now appear to agree on the principle that an accused in custody is entitled to counsel at a photographic identification procedure. There is strong support for this Michigan position in the Federal Courts, in other State Jurisdictions and in England. The United States Supreme Court has not directly ruled on the subject yet, but Justice Harlan in Simmons, where the right to counsel was not raised, spoke of the greater dangers of photographic identification as follows: The reliability of the identification procedure could have been increased by allowing only one or two of the five eyewitnesses to view the pictures of Simmons. If thus identified, Simmons could later have been displayed to the other eyewitnesses in a lineup, thus permitting the photographic identification to be supplemented by a corporeal identification, which is normally more accurate. See P. Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases 83 (1965); Williams, Identification Parades [1955] Crim. L. Rev. 525, 531. Simmons, 386, n 6. (Emphasis added.) The references to Wall by Justice Harlan in Simmons conclude in part as follows: [A] photographic identification, even when properly obtained is clearly inferior to a properly obtained corporeal identification. Consequently, witnesses should be asked to examine photographs only when a proper corporeal identification is impossible (as where no suspect has yet been found) or difficult. In any other case, the use of photographs is improper, for it constitutes the unnecessary employment of an identification procedure clearly inferior in reliability to one which is available. Wall, 70. (Emphasis added.) In United States v Ash, 149 US App DC 1; 461 F2d 92 (1972), cert granted, 409 US 909; 92 S Ct 2436; 32 L Ed 2d 682 (1972) Judge Leventhal wrote for the Court: [T]he dangers of mistaken identification from uncounseled lineup identifications set forth in Wade are applicable in large measure to photographic as well as corporeal identifications.    While these difficulties may be somewhat mitigated by preserving the photograph shown, it may also be said that a photograph can preserve the record of a lineup; yet this does not justify a lineup without counsel. Id, 9-10. See also United States v Zeiler, 427 F2d 1305, 1307 (CA 3, 1970). [18] But cf. McGee v United States, 402 F2d 434 (CA 10, 1968), cert den, 394 US 908; 89 S Ct 1020; 22 L Ed 2d 220 (1969); United States v Bennett, 409 F2d 888 (CA 2, 1969), cert den sub nom United States v Haywood, 396 US 852; 90 S Ct 113; 24 L Ed 2d 101; reh den, 396 US 949; 90 S Ct 376; 24 L Ed 2d 256 (1970). [19] The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in Commonwealth v Whiting, 439 Pa 205, 209; 266 A2d 738, 740; cert den, 400 US 919; 91 S Ct 173; 27 L Ed 2d 159 (1970): Wade cannot be undercut simply by substituting pictures for people, nor can the police prepare a witness for the lineup by privately showing the witness pictures of the accused. (Emphasis added.) In Thompson v State, 85 Nev 134, 137; 451 P2d 704, 706; cert den, 396 US 893; 90 S Ct 189; 24 L Ed 2d 170 (1969) the Supreme Court of Nevada said: We can discern no substantial difference between a lineup of photographs of persons and a lineup of the persons themselves insofar as the constitutional safeguards required by Wade, supra, are concerned. (Emphasis added.) [20]