Court Opinion

ID: 9629340
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:40:53.61914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:18.023854
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Although social amenities may have suggested that the sheriff’s deputies be hospitable to defendant’s counsel at the time they interrogated the witness Gomes subsequent to the lineup, I disagree with the majority that the counsel’s presence was required by rules enunciated in United States v. Wade (1967) 388 U.S. 218 [18 L.Ed.2d 1149, 87 S.Ct. 1926], and Gilbert v. California (1967) 388 U.S. 263 [18 L.Ed.2d 1178, 87 S.Ct. 1951], Nor does People v. Fowler (1969) 1 Cal.3d 335 [82 Cal.Rptr. 363, 461 P.2d 643], contain any holding compelling the result reached by the majority.
The rationale of Wade was expressed in this manner: “When the Bill of Rights was adopted, there were no organized police forces as we know them today. The accused confronted the prosecutor and the witnesses against him, and the evidence was marshalled, largely at the trial itself. In contrast, today’s law enforcement machinery involves critical confrontations of the accused by the prosecution at pretrial proceedings where the results might well settle the accused’s fate and reduce the trial itself to a mere formality.” (388 U.S. at p. 224 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1156].) The court was concerned with the mysteries of human perception, and was particularly apprehensive that the unprotected presence of an accused might arouse, through improper suggestion, the subjective image of the culprit carved in the memory of the witness. The key to the court opinion, however, is presence of the accused. Throughout the opinion the court refers to the confrontation between the witnesses and the accused, and suggests the prejudice inherent at trial to an accused who offers an “unsupported version” of an unfair lineup. (Id. at p. 231 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1160].) The court quoted Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases, page 53, for some striking examples of unfair confrontations: “In a Canadian case ... the defendant had been picked out of a line-up of six men, of which he was the only Oriental. In other cases, a black-haired suspect was placed among a group of light-haired persons, tall suspects have been made to stand with short non-suspects, and, in a case where the perpetrator of the crime was known to be a youth, a suspect under twenty was placed in a line-up with five other persons, all of whom were forty or over.” (Id. at p. 232 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1160].)
*859No one can justify rigged lineups; they are indefensible legally and unsupportable as a law enforcement technique. But here the majority would extend the concept of a lineup or showup to include not merely the physical confrontation, but subsequent interrogation of a witness by peace officers. Certainly it cannot be contended that defense counsel has a right to be present whenever officers examine prospective witnesses, and there seems to be no rational reason for requiring counsel’s presence merely because the prospective witness previously attended a lineup. Instead of taking the witness Gomes into another room for discussion shortly after termination of the lineup, the officers could have suggested he go home, contemplate the lineup and its participants, and return the next day or next week for a discussion. It could not seriously be urged that counsel for defendant would be entitled to attend that interview. Why, then, should he have a right to be present at the private interview merely because it was held earlier?
Indeed the Supreme Court has hinted that identification by witnesses at the time of the lineup is potentially erroneous. In Gilbert the lineup was held in an auditorium with 10 to 13 prisoners placed on a lighted stage. Some 100 witnesses to several alleged robberies were present, and during and after the lineup the witnesses called out the numbers of the men they could identify. This, said the Supreme Court in Wade, was “fraught with dangers of suggestion.” (388 U.S. at p. 234 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1161].)
I find significant in determining the Supreme Court’s limitation of the scope of lineup procedure its comment in Wade (at p. 238 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1164]) that “Concern is also expressed that the presence of counsel will force divulgence of the identity of government witnesses whose identity the Government may want to conceal. To the extent that this is a valid or significant state interest there are police practices commonly used to effect concealment, for example, masking the face.” If, as suggested in Wade, it would have been proper for the law enforcement officers here to conceal the identity of the witness Gomes and to mask his face during the physical lineup itself, it appears highly unlikely that the Wade rule would compel either disclosure of the witness or revelation to defendant’s counsel of comments at interrogation subsequent to the lineup.
Wade and Gilbert, to a distressing extent, left many pragmatic problems unanswered. We were not disposed to provide any answers in People v. Fowler, supra, 1 Cal.3d at p. 349, footnote 19. And I suggest the majority opinion in this instance will compound the difficulties encountered by law enforcement officers in their essential investigative functions.
The primary question left unresolved by Wade and Gilbert is the permis*860sible role of the lawyer at lineups. In the absence of judicial or administrative rules, it would appear that defense counsel has no affirmative right to be active during the course of the lineup. He cannot rearrange the personnel, cross-examine, ask those in the lineup to say anything or to don any particular clothing or to' make any specific gestures. Counsel may not insist law enforcement officials hear his objection to procedures employed, nor may he compel them to adjust their lineup to his views of what is appropriate. (Note (1967) 77 Yale L.J. 390; Note (1968) 63 Nw. U.L. Rev. 251, 259.)
At most, defense counsel is merely present at the lineup to silently observe and to later recall his observations for purposes of cross-examination or to act in the capacity of a witness. But the latter raises the complex trial circumstance, frowned upon by ethics of the profession, of the lawyer serving in the additional role of a testimonial witness.
By permitting defense counsel to attend interrogation subsequent to the lineup, the majority inject him into the law enforcement investigative process. Not only is this procedure unrequired by authority and undesirable as interference with police technique, but it runs contrary to federal trends subsequent to Wade and Gilbert. (See, e.g., Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 3502; Russell v. United States (1969) 408 F.2d 1280, 1284 [133 App.D.C. 77].)
Counsel’s right to be present at a lineup is dependent upon the presence of the accused at the lineup. The accused, at a critical stage of criminal proceedings, cannot remain unrepresented by counsel. Once the police investigation departs from the accused’s presence, then neither he nor his counsel has any right of attendance or observation. In the instant case, counsel was properly present during the confrontation of this defendant and witnesses at the lineup. Once the physical confrontation terminated and interrogation of a prospective witness outside the presence of defendant began, the right of counsel to be present ceased.
I would deem this to be a workable rule of practice: counsel is entitled to attend the physical confrontation at a lineup, but he has no enforceable right to attend subsequent interrogation of witnesses occurring outside the presence of the accused, whether or not the witnesses had been present at the lineup.
I would affirm the judgment.
McComb, J., and Burke, J., concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied February 17, 1971. McComb, J., Mosk, J., and Burke, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.