Court Opinion

ID: 9458181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:44:52.007882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:39.909110
License: Public Domain

ADAMS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
In my dissenting opinion in United States ex rel. Gockley v. Myers, 450 F.2d 232 (3d Cir. 1971), I expressed serious doubt regarding the role that has been accorded in recent years to the writ of habeas corpus in the administration of criminal justice, particularly in connection with state criminal proceedings. See, id., at 253. That concern is in no way diminished by my joining with the majority today. Rather, this case falls within the ambit of the writ carefully delineated by Congress in setting forth the admonition to “dispose of the matter as law and justice require.” 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (1970).
Here, the evidence at trial and the allegations in the petition, if true, raise the possibility that the conviction may have been the result of “violence to our minimum standards of fair treatment,” 450 F.2d at 253, which should form the prerequisite to obtaining the relief requested. The factors compelling such conclusion in this case are, in my mind, important enough to merit a separate, though brief, exposition.
Mackey Choice’s conviction was based solely on the eyewitness testimony of two of the four tellers who were in the bank when it was robbed.1 Both tellers testified that they had only limited opportunities to see the perpetrator of the crime, and one teller testified that he based his in-court identification in part upon the photographs shown to him. Furthermore, both witnesses admitted that they had, during a hearing before the magistrate, lied under oath regarding their identifications of Choice. Be*75cause of the manner in which the case developed, reference in the record to the stationhouse confrontation was somewhat oblique and elliptical.2 Since the validity of the identification was the crucial, indeed the sole, factual issue before the jury which convicted Choice, due process requires no less than that the in-court identifications be free from impermissible suggestion. The record developed during Choice’s two trials is scant with regard to the determinative facts, and accordingly, the district court should have the advantage of an evidentiary hearing before deciding the due process question.

. At the time of the trial, the police had not recovered any of the stolen money. Nor had they discovered, despite a search of Choice’s home, the clothes worn by the robber, the gun which the robber indicated he possessed, or the identity of the robber’s accomplice.

. Mr. Choice never testified, and the testimony of the police officers and tellers was limited to avoid prejudice and hearsay problems.