Court Opinion

ID: 9758839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:52:24.765284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:56.831943
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Nix :
In my view, the rationale of our decision in Commonwealth v. Whiting, 439 Pa. 205, 266 A. 2d 738 (1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 919 (1971), applies to the photographic line-up in this case. However, since that line-up preceded the Whiting decision, I would not hold that appellant had a right to counsel and I concur in the result reached by the majority solely on that basis. See, Commonwealth v. Smith, 452 Pa. 1, 304 A. 2d 456 (1973).
In Whiting, we held that a suspect who is in custody has a right to have counsel present when the police exhibit his photograph to a potential witness in hopes of obtaining an identification. In this case, appellant was in custody at the time the police exhibited his photograph to Sanders, and the purpose of exhibiting that photograph was to determine whom Sanders could identify as a participant in the crime being investigated—nothing more or less. The majority suggests that the protections given by Whiting are inapplicable because Sanders knew the perpetrator by a nickname.
I must respectfully disagree. The protection offered by Whiting is intended to guard against unnecessarily suggestive pretrial confrontations. Whenever police investigation has centered upon an individual to the extent of bringing him into custody, and the police intend *320thereafter to obtain an identification from a potential witness, the danger of suggestion is present. We should not entertain fine questions concerning the strength of the potential witness’ identification in each case; rather we have established a broad rule precisely to eliminate the need for such inquiries. The fact that a witness is very sure of the pretrial identification he. is called upon to mate, even to the point of knowing the perpetmtor’s name (or nickname) does not render Whiting inapplicable. Thus, I cannot join in the majority opinion even though I concur in the result.