Court Opinion

ID: 9477294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:19:30.441933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:26.993615
License: Public Domain

*899CLARK, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the affirmance of the district court’s denial of Cikora’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. I dissent from the majority’s holding as to our “standard of review of the district court’s conclusion that the identification procedure was not imper-missively suggestive,” see supra part II. The majority adopts the “clearly erroneous” standard. I can only assume that the majority in using that phrase has in mind the standard set forth in Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), which states in part: “Findings of fact, whether based on oral or documentary evidence, shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.”
In my view, Rule 52(a) has no application in this 28 U.S.C. § 2254 proceeding. I disagree that the issue of an identification procedure’s suggestiveness is a question of fact. Thus, our review of this case is neither a Rule 52(a) or a 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) review. In Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985), the Supreme Court set forth several principles to guide the federal courts in distinguishing questions of fact from those of law. An issue is more appropriately deemed legal “[wjhere, for example, as with proof of malice in First-Amendment libel cases, the relevant legal principle can be given meaning only through its application to the particular circumstances of a case,” id. at 452, or where there are “ ‘perceived shortcomings of the trier of fact by way of bias or some other factor.’” Id. (quoting Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 518, 104 S.Ct. 1949, 1969, 80 L.Ed.2d 502 (1984) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting)). An issue is more appropriately deemed factual “[w]hen, for example, the issue involves the credibility of witnesses and therefore turns largely on an evaluation of demeanor.”1 Id.
Under these principles, the suggestiveness question would seem to be a legal issue, or at the very least, a mixed question of law and fact, which, like a purely legal issue, is freely reviewable. It can certainly be said that the suggestiveness concept can be “given meaning only through its application to the particular circumstances of a case”; one need only look at the fact-laden analyses of the courts that have decided the suggestiveness question. See, e.g., Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977); Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); Foster v. California, 394 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 1127, 22 L.Ed.2d 402 (1969). Additionally, the suggestiveness question is not one that turns on evaluations of demeanor and/or the credibility of witnesses. The facts underlying the decision are virtually never in dispute, and it is not as though the relevant witnesses ever speak to the ultimate issue, as is the case, for example, when a defendant’s competence or a juror’s bias is at issue.2
Additionally, none of the Supreme Court cases dealing with due process challenges based on identification procedures treats the suggestiveness question as one of fact; to the extent they indicate anything, they imply that the issue is one of law. First, from the earliest cases, the Court has referred to the following “standard” or “test”: whether an identification procedure is “so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a substantial likelihood of misidenti-fication.” See, e.g., Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. at 198, 93 S.Ct. at 381. Second, in Neil v. Biggers, the district court had *900found that the lineup was impermissibly suggestive without addressing its reliability, the Sixth Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court reversed, ruling that an independent determination of reliability was necessary. The majority and dissent clashed over whether the reversal amounted to a failure to abide by the rule that when the two courts below have concurred in their findings of fact, the Court should not upset those findings. The majority wrote that the rule was “inapplicable here where the dispute between the parties is not so much over the elemental facts as over the constitutional significance to be attached to them.” Id. at 193 n. 3, 93 S.Ct. at 379 n. 3.
Finally, in Sumner v. Mata, 455 U.S. 591, 102 S.Ct. 1303, 71 L.Ed.2d 480 (1987)— the only identification case addressing the standard of review directly — the Court seemed to deliberately sidestep the issue of the standard of review to be accorded the second-tier questions, i.e., suggestiveness and reliability. In reversing the Ninth Circuit for its failure to accord the state court’s fact findings the presumption of correctness mandated by section 2254(d), the Court did not really specify which tier of findings the Court of Appeals had mistreated. The Court did, however, offer clues:
We agree with the Court of Appeals that the ultimate question as to the constitutionality of the pretrial identification procedures used in this case is a mixed question of law and fact that is not governed by § 2254(d). In deciding this question, the federal court may give different weight to the facts as found by the state court and may reach a different conclusion in light of the legal standard. But the questions of fact that underlie this ultimate conclusion are governed by the statutory presumption as our earlier opinion made clear. Thus, whether the witness in this case had an opportunity to observe the crime or were too distracted; whether the witnesses gave a detailed, accurate description; and whether the witnesses were under pressure from prison officials or others are all questions of fact to which the statutory presumption applies.
Id. at 597, 102 S.Ct. at 1306-07 (emphasis added). Elsewhere in the opinion, the Court states that on the case’s first appearance before it, “We expressed no view as to whether the procedures had been impermis-sibly suggestive. That was a question for the Court of Appeals to decide in the first instance after complying with § 2254(d).” Id. at 596, 102 S.Ct. at 1306. These statements taken together indicate that the suggestiveness determination is at least in part a legal conclusion. The “facts” referred to in the long quoted passage are historical, verifiable events. See Martin v. Kemp, 760 F.2d 1244, 1247 (11th Cir.1985) (“ ‘[factual issues include basic, primary, or historical facts,’ such as external events and credibility determinations”) (quoting Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 309 n. 6, 83 S.Ct. 745, 755 n. 6, 9 L.Ed.2d 770 (1963)). Moreover, the Court’s instruction to reach the suggestiveness determination after according the facts their presumption of correctness implies that the determination is not accorded such a presumption, i.e., is not a factual issue.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the suggestiveness question is subject to clear error analysis. I concur, however, in the majority’s decision on the merits. The case is a troubling one because the only evidence connecting the defendant to the burglary was the identification by two witnesses under circumstances that raise grave doubts as to the suggestiveness of the procedure. I see no error of law, however, in the district court’s conclusion that when the identifications are viewed in their totality, there are sufficient indicia of reliability to negate a violation of due process. Because these indicia of reliability represent limitations on a federal court’s review of a state conviction, I join the majority in affirming the district court’s judgment.

. In addition to setting forth these principles, the Miller Court stated that “an issue does not lose its factual character because its resolution is dispositive of the ultimate constitutional question.” 106 S.Ct. at 451. Because of this language, I have trouble accepting the majority’s use of the converse — namely, that the suggestiveness issue is a factual question because it is not dispositive of the ultimate constitutional question.

. The Supreme Court has determined that questions of a defendant’s competence or a juror’s bias are fact questions subject to clear error review and the presumption of correctness. See Maggio v. Fulford, 462 U.S. 111, 117, 103 S.Ct. 2261, 2264, 76 L.Ed.2d 794 (1983) (competence); Patton v. Yount, 467 U.S. 1025, 1036, 104 S.Ct. 2885, 2891, 81 L.Ed.2d 847 (1984) (juror bias).