Opinion ID: 2512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutional Standards for the Admission of Eyewitness Identifications

Text: In order to determine whether the state court's decision constituted an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, we must first survey the well-established federal law regulating the introduction of eyewitness identification testimony at criminal trials. Reliability is the touchstone for admission of eyewitness identification testimony pursuant to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Raheem v. Kelly, 257 F.3d 122, 133 (2d Cir.2001). As we explained in Raheem, our inquiry into the reliability of eyewitness identifications proceeds in two stages: The court must first determine whether the pretrial identification procedures unduly and unnecessarily suggested that the defendant was the perpetrator. If the procedures were not suggestive, the identification evidence presents no due process obstacle to admissibility; no further inquiry by the court is required, and the reliability of properly admitted eyewitness identification, like the credibility of the other parts of the prosecution's case is a matter for the jury. If the court finds, however, that the procedures were [unnecessarily] suggestive, it must then determine whether the identification was nonetheless independently reliable. In sum, the identification evidence will be admissible if (a) the procedures were not [unnecessarily] suggestive or (b) the identification has independent reliability. Id. (internal citations, quotation marks and alterations omitted); see also id. at 134 (discussing whether evidence was unduly or unnecessarily suggestive). Under the first step of this analysis, an identification procedure may be deemed unduly and unnecessarily suggestive if it is based on police procedures that create a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968). While a showup procedure is inherently suggestive because it involves the presentation of a single suspect to a witness by the police (as opposed to a lineup, in which several individuals are presented to the police, only one of whom is the suspect), and has accordingly been widely condemned, Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), a claimed violation of due process in the conduct of a confrontation depends on the totality of the circumstances surrounding it, id. Accordingly, a showup identification violates due process only if it is an  unnecessarily suggestive procedure. Id. (emphasis added). Exigent circumstances generally weigh in favor of concluding that a showup identification procedure was not unnecessarily suggestive, because a showup procedure may be necessary in such circumstances to quickly confirm the identity of a suspect, or to ensure the release of an innocent suspect. See, e.g., id. (concluding that suggestive showup identification procedure did not violate due process because sole eyewitness to crime was at risk of dying and was unable to travel from her hospital bed to police station for lineup); United States v. Bautista, 23 F.3d 726, 730 (2d Cir.1994) (Oakes, J.) ([A] prompt showing of a detained suspect at the scene of arrest has a very valid function: to prevent the mistaken arrest of innocent persons. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, we have instructed that where an officer has or should have doubts whether a detained suspect is in fact the person sought, the officer must make `immediate reasonable efforts to confirm the suspect's identity,' id. ( quoting United States v. Valez, 796 F.2d 24, 27 (2d Cir.1986)), and we have held that identification evidence from showups held in close temporal and geographic proximity to the crime scene may be admitted, see, e.g., Bautista, 23 F.3d at 731; United States ex rel. Cummings v. Zelker, 455 F.2d 714, 716 (2d Cir.1972) (holding that showup procedure was necessary to insure the immediate release of an innocent suspect and at the same time to enable the police to resume the search for the fleeing culprit while the trail [was] still fresh). Even if an identification procedure is unduly suggestive, the out-of-court identification may nonetheless be admissible if other factors indicate that the identification is independently reliable. To ascertain whether an identification has reliability independent of the unduly suggestive identification procedures, Raheem, 257 F.3d at 135, courts generally look to five established factors, first set forth in Neil v. Biggers : [1] the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, [2] the witness' degree of attention, [3] the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the criminal, [4] the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and [5] the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. 409 U.S. 188, 199-200, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); see also Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977). None of these factors standing alone is dispositive of the existence of independent reliability; instead, reliability is assessed in light of the totality of the circumstances. Raheem, 257 F.3d at 135.