Court Opinion

ID: 9643842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:41:39.930481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:04.354501
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
concurring.
Both the majority and dissenting opinion, as well as the original panel opinion, deal with an issue that is not present in the case before us. A reading of the testimony of Ms. Rosado fails to reveal a positive identification of appellant as the person who attempted to enter the residence. I fail to perceive how an in-court identification can be tainted when there was no identification made.
The sum and substance of the testimony was that the in-court “identification” of appellant was to identify him as the person arrested by the police on the night in question. As the State maintains in its Motion for Rehearing, Ms. Rosado did not make a positive in-court identification. I quote approvingly from the State’s Brief:
“This case should not be confused with all of those ‘impermissibly suggestive pre-trial procedures’ cases where the positive in-court identification of the defendant as a perpetrator of the crime on trial is tainted. See Coleman v. State, 505 S.W.2d 878; cf. Demouchette v. State, 591 S.W.2d 488, and Doescher v. State, 578 S.W.2d 385. There was no such in-court identification in this case.
“Doby v. State, 455 S.W.2d 278, addresses the issue in the instant case. There, the State had some nine ‘identification’ witnesses, all of whom had apparently viewed the defendant in a lineup. The robbers were wearing masks at the time of the robbery; and, as to three of the ‘identification’ witnesses, the trial court found that they could not positively identify the defendant who was wearing a mask at the time of the robbery and concluded that an identification by either of those three ‘identification’ witnesses would not be free of taint. Therefore, these three witnesses were not permitted to identify the defendant as one of the robbers. They were, however, permitted to ‘... testify concerning similarities of one of the robbers and the appellant.’ For instance, one of the witnesses, Dielefeldt, was allowed to testify that one of the masked robbers had a shotgun and that he had the same ‘general overall build’ *517as the defendant. This Court endorsed the trial court’s rulings.
“Doby stands firmly for the proposition that, as long as the witness does not undertake to render an in-court identification of the defendant as being the one who committed the crime on trial, it is permissible for that witness to testify as to any characteristics which the offender and the defendant had in common. That is all Ms. Rosado did in the instant case. She did not make an ‘in-court identification.’
“As a matter of fact, although the words ‘identification’ and ‘identify’ are loosely tossed about, this record reveals that Ms. Rosado never, at anytime, even to the police, positively identified this appellant as one of the offenders. All she ever did was to state the similarities concerning the appellant and one of the offenders. She made it plain to everybody from the time of the offense until the close of the trial that she couldn’t positively identify this appellant.
“The inability of a witness to be positive of his identification goes to the weight of the testimony and not the admissibility. Valenciano v. State, 511 S.W.2d 297; Martinez v. State, 507 S.W.2d 223; and that is what the instant case is all about.” [Emphasis in original.]
One additional factor not considered in the other opinions is the fact that the jury in the case at bar was charged on the law of circumstantial evidence. Had the testimony of Ms. Rosado been interpreted by the trial officials as a positive identification of appellant as the perpetrator of the crime, then it would logically follow that the charge on circumstantial evidence would not have been given.
My reading of the testimony is consistent with the position of the State and the trial officials that there was no “positive in-court identification” and therefore there is nothing to taint. Such objection goes to the weight and not the admissibility of the testimony, and the court’s charge sufficiently protected the appellant’s rights.
For these reasons, I concur in the affirmance of the conviction.