Court Opinion

ID: 9744231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:57:36.330366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:47.757182
License: Public Domain

Concurring in Result
DeBruler, C.J.
I believe the trial court should have sustained the objection to the witness Hodgin’s testimony concerning his pre-trial identification of appellant resulting from the presentation of appellant to the witness by the police in the absence of counsel representing appellant or an express waiver of counsel by appellant.
*263In United States v. Wade (1967), 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1149, the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant has a right to the presence of counsel at every critical stage of the proceedings, saying:
“in addition to counsel’s presence at trial, the accused is guaranteed that he need not stand alone against the State at any stage of the prosecution, formal or informal, in court or out, where counsel’s absence might derogate from the accused’s right to a fair trial.” 388 U.S. at 226.
Under that test the police-induced confrontation of the appellant by the witness Hodgin was clearly a critical stage of the prosecution. His very freedom depended on what the witness said. As the United States Supreme Court said in United States v. Wade, supra:
“Moreover, ‘[i]t is a matter of common experience that, once a witness has picked out the accused at the line-up, he is not likely to go back on his word later on, so that in practice the issue of identity may (in the absence of other relevant evidence) for all practical purposes be determined there and then, before the trial.’ ” 388 U.S. at 229.
It is only by assuming the reliability of the identification by the witness can it be said that the interests of a suspect are protected by a procedure allowing for the pre-trial identification of a suspect in the absence of counsel for the suspect.
The issue is not whose interests outweigh whose, but whether or not anything of importance to the appellant’s freedom might be lost at such an identification.
There is no justification for an exception to this rule, unless it is clear that the absence of counsel could in no way derogate from the accused’s right to a fair trial. That is certainly not the case here. To quote again from the Wade case:
“But the confrontation compelled by the State between the accused and the victim or witnesses to a crime to elicit identification evidence is peculiarly riddled with innumerable dangers and variable factors which might seriously, even crucially, derogate from a fair trial. The vagaries of *264eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification.” 338 U.S. at 228.
Since appellant had a right to the presence of counsel at the identification, in the absence of a waiver of that right proved by the State, no testimony concerning that identification was constitutionally admissible. United States v. Wade, supra.
However, I believe the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California (1967), 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L. Ed 2d 705. The State’s case included the unassailed in-court identification of appellant by Hodgin as one of the men who robbed him and the in-court identification of appellant by the witness Biehl. This was strong enough to render the error in admitting testimony concerning a pre-trial identification insignificant.
Note. — Reported in 253 N. E. 2d 226.