Opinion ID: 2313014
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Degree of Attention

Text: Both witnesses had their attention completely focused on defendant at the time of their views. Each woman encountered defendant in a one-on-one situation involving a brief conversation without other distractions to divert her attention. Furthermore, we find that the circumstances of each view, involving the sudden discovery of a stranger in one's home, are of such a nature that the witnesses' instinctive reactions would be to focus their complete attention on the stranger to try and determine whether they knew the stranger or his purpose in being someplace he was not supposed to be. This special degree of attention indicates that both women were more than casual observers. Biggers, 409 U.S. at 200, 93 S.Ct. at 382, 34 L.Ed.2d at 412; Delahunt, 121 R.I. at 573, 401 A.2d at 1266; see also State v. Parker, 472 A.2d 1206, 1209 (R.I. 1984) (perpetrator and witness's one-on-one contact allowed witness to direct her full attention toward him).