Court Opinion

ID: 9793952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:55:44.860372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:08:51.295543
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(dissenting)—I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which concludes that the photographic identification procedure in this case was not violative of due process under the rule of Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1247, 88 S. Ct. 967 (1968).
In Simmons, photographic identification was allowed where the perpetrators of the crime were still at large and it was essential for FBI agents to swiftly determine whether they were on the right track. The court, in Sim*211mons, noted the suggestive nature of pretrial identification from photographs, stating, at page 383:
Even if the police . . . follow the most correct photographic identification procedures and show him the pictures of a number of individuals without indicating whom they suspect, there is some danger that the witness may make an incorrect identification. This danger will be increased if the police display to the witness only the picture of a single individual who generally resembles the person he saw . . .
As noted in the majority opinion, the test to determine whether due process has been violated is whether the identification procedure was “so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. ”
The procedure used by the police, as testified to by Brown, gave him no one to choose from who was not already a suspect identified as such by the police. The four photographs he was shown were of two males and two females, all suspects, and each with differing physical characteristics. This brings the case, I believe, squarely within the photographic identification process condemned by Simmons and subsequent cases. Kimbrough v. Cox, 444 F.2d 8 (4th Cir. 1971); United States v. Fowler, 439 F.2d 133 (9th Cir. 1971); Mason v. United States, 414 F.2d 1176 (D.C. Cir. 1969).
There were no exigent circumstances in this case as existed in the Simmons case, and no urgent need for immediate action prevented the investigating officer from taking the trouble to bring several similar photographs with him. Mason v. United States, supra. Even if the police investigator did not expressly say so, it was obvious from Brown’s testimony that those photographs shown him were of the only suspects in the case.
I am unable to determine from the record whether Brown’s identification at trial was based upon evidence independent of the suggestive photographic process. At the close of the defendant’s motion to dismiss, based upon a *212suggestion that in-court identification of the defendant was polluted by impermissibly suggestive law enforcement efforts, the trial court ruled:
The motion that you made, Mr. Self, for dismissal also will be denied. I might point out to you the fact you had these people on cross-examination, and in no wise was there ever any testimony that they were not able to identify them in court, nor was there any testimony that the fact that they may have inadvertently been in the courtroom, that had any effect whatsoever on their identification of either one of the two defendants.
This ruling does not address itself directly to the question of whether Brown was able to make an independent identification of the defendant. Brown’s identification of the defendant may be allowed if the trial judge can find that Brown, by drawing on his memory of the events of the crime and his observations of the defendant, retained such a definite image of the defendant that he is now able in court to make an identification of the defendant without dependence upon or assistance from the tainted pretrial confrontation, and unaffected by any promptings or suggestions which there took place. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 241, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1149, 87 S. Ct. 1926 (1967).
Whether Brown was able to make such an independent identification cannot be determined from the record before us and I would remand this case to the trial court for a factual hearing on this question. If the trial court determines Brown’s identification was able to be made from independent sources, the conviction should be affirmed. If not, the conviction should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
Stafford, J., concurs with Utter, J.
Petition for rehearing denied October 26, 1972.