Opinion ID: 2054485
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of Review of Findings of Fact.

Text: In Commonwealth v. Dickerson, 372 Mass. 783, 789 (1977), and again in Commonwealth v. Dougan, 377 Mass. 303, 317 (1979), we stated that, [s]ince eyewitness identification often plays a major, if not a determinative, role in the trial of criminal offenses, and the dangers of mistaken identification are great and the result possibly tragic, defendants must be allowed to examine fully during the voir dire hearing the totality of circumstances ... (emphasis in original). Such a full examination was allowed in the present case. The judge made careful and detailed findings of fact based on the six days of testimony at the hearing on the motions to suppress. During the hearing defense counsel was allowed great latitude in questioning the witnesses concerning the circumstances of their identifications. The judge, after carefully summarizing the evidence, arrived at the conclusions that the Mark and Fischman identifications were admissible, but that the testimony of a third person, not an eyewitness, should be excluded. The judge's findings and conclusions take up thirty-eight pages, plus two pages of footnotes, and are an outstanding example of thoroughness. We shall accept his findings of fact as binding in the absence of clear error, see Commonwealth v. Moon, 380 Mass. 751, 755-756 (1980), and view with particular respect the conclusions of law which are based on them. See Commonwealth v. Cincotta, 379 Mass. 391, 392 (1979). We shall not go behind the facts found by the judge on the motion except to the extent that it is alleged that the evidence was not sufficient to support the findings made. As to evidence which was introduced at the hearing, whether or not contradicted, concerning which the judge made no findings, we have no way to tell whether, or to what extent, he believed it to be true. We shall therefore consider such evidence only where it is alleged that a failure to make findings with respect to that evidence was clearly erroneous. The defendant here does not make such a claim, but challenges the legal standards applied and conclusions reached by the motion judge. With respect to the ultimate conclusions of law reached by the judge, we shall undertake an independent examination of the facts found by the judge to ascertain whether they involve a deprivation of the defendant's constitutional rights. Commonwealth v. Moon, supra at 756. The defendant argues that the lineup identifications by Mark and Fischman were the product of impermissibly suggestive police procedures which gave rise to a very substantial likelihood of mistaken identification. The specific suggestive procedures alleged regarding the Mark identification are (1) the impact of the repeated showing, seven times within one week, of the defendant's picture to the witness, where three of the pictures were shown as part of an array found to be unnecessarily suggestive; (2) the comment made by the detective who showed the first set of pictures to Mark; (3) the numerous features of the lineup which focused the witness's attention on the defendant, including (a) the use of a wig dissimilar to the one used in the robbery but similar to one worn by the defendant in one of the mug shot pictures, (b) the fact that the defendant was the only one in his lineup whom the witness had seen before in photographs, (c) the fact that the defendant had the lightest hair of anyone in his lineup, (d) the fact that the defendant was required to repeat certain phrases and exercises, which some other lineup standees were not required to do, and (e) conducting the lineups before witnesses to a number of crimes for which the defendant was suspected, and telling the witnesses that two suspects would be present at the lineups. The suggestive procedures alleged with respect to the Fischman identification are the same as the above, with the exceptions that he was shown pictures of the defendant three times during the week after the robbery attempt, not seven, and was not shown the suggestive array prepared by the bank security officer, and with the addition that to show Fischman a lineup of only males may be considered suggestive because he originally had expressed some doubt whether the person he saw was male or female. The suggestive procedures, it is argued, even more compellingly require the suppression of the identifications when considered in light of the relatively brief glimpse which each witness had of the vaulter, and the extremely long time, some sixteen months, which elapsed between the time of the crime and the lineup at which the witnesses identified the defendant for the first time.