Court Opinion

ID: 9687258
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:20:33.695115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:25.191371
License: Public Domain

Bronson, J.
(concurring). I concur with Judge Targonski’s well-reasoned opinion that under the particular circumstances of this case the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by ordering an in-court lineup procedure.
In United States v Wade, 388 US 218; 87 S Ct 1926; 18 L Ed 2d 1149 (1967), and Gilbert v California, 388 US 263; 87 S Ct 1951; 18 L Ed 2d 1178 (1967), the Supreme Court judicially recognized the possibilities of unfairness inherent in previously used identification procedures and attempted to guard against those possibilities. The Supreme Court found that lineups were "riddled with innumerable dangers and variable factors which might seriously, even crucially, derogate from a fair trial. The vagaries of eyewitness identification are well known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification.” 388 US at 228; 87 S Ct at 1933; 18 L Ed 2d at 1158. The Court in Wade, supra, sought to protect against such abuse. I see no difference between a "tainted” out-of-court identification and a "tainted” in-court identification.
Since it is the government’s burden to show that its evidence is untainted (Alderman v United States, 394 US 165; 89 S Ct 961; 22 L Ed 2d 176 [1969]), in the instant case the procedures outlined by the examining magistrate act both to protect the defendant and to possibly prevent the necessity of the government meeting an impossible burden.
The law books are replete with cases dealing with the difficult question of "tainted” evidence. *46Where the question can be avoided by using reasonable procedures, certainly the judiciary should expect no less of itself than it does of police agencies.