Court Opinion

ID: 9457323
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:18:37.543808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:18.201961
License: Public Domain

TIMBERS, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I concur in the Court’s judgment of reversal and in Judge Lumbard’s lucid opinion in all respects. My only reservation is directed at the practicality of remanding to the District Court for an evidentiary hearing more than six years after the critical events. I agree with Judge McLean’s observation more than a year ago that “[Wjhether any more could be elucidated now, some five years later, is highly dubious.”
Accordingly, I would reverse and remand to the District Court with directions that the writ issue unless the State grants petitioner a new trial within sixty days. That would place the responsibility where it seems to me it rightly belongs, i. e. upon the State authorities, to determine whether petitioner should be released or retried. Chief Judge Fuld, in his dissenting opinion, 22 N.Y.2d at 456, thought that the ease should have been remanded to the State trial court for a hearing on the propriety of the pre-trial identification procedures and their bearing upon the in-court identification. I would let the State trial court make that determination, guided by Judge Lum-bard’s eminently sound opinion.