Court Opinion

ID: 9847306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:57:27.162198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:06.779432
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Judge,
specially concurring.
I concur in the affirmation of the judgment and sentence in this case. I write only to point out that this Court’s approving the admission of Exhibit No. 4 is a marked expansion of the rule that permits testimony regarding an extrajudicial identification.
*1208Prior to the 1972 case of Hill v. State, 500 P.2d 1075 (Okl.Cr.1972), testimony brought out by the prosecution in chief of an extrajudicial identification was inadmissible and constituted reversible error. In Hill that rule was modified by a Special Concurrence by Judge Simms, in which Judge Bussey concurred, to allow the identifier, after making an in-court identification that satisfied the requirements of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) and Thompson v. State, 438 P.2d 287 (1968), to testify that he at a particular day, place, and time or times, had occasion to see, recognize and identify the defendant as the person who committed the crime. The rationale for this change was that a “prior identification of an accused is more reliable than a later courtroom identification for the reason that it is closer to the crime in point of time, thus affording less opportunity for fading or deterioration of the victim’s memory or changes in the accused’s appearance.” 500 P.2d at 1078.
The quote from Godwin v. State set forth in Judge Parks’ opinion appears to indicate that this Court has previously permitted testimony regarding extrajudicial identification without any limitation save that the identifier be the testifier. This is not the case. As recently as January of this year Judge Parks wrote that “the identifier may testify about the pre-trial identification procedure after, and only after, an in-court identification has been made.” Jones v. State, 695 P.2d 13, 16 (Okl.Cr.1985). It is clear when read in full that the Godwin opinion was merely a reiteration of the rule that the evidence of the pretrial identification cannot be introduced by a third person present at the identification but must be introduced by the identifier himself.
Nevertheless I believe the expansion set forth in this case is a good one. It is an unfair advantage to the defense to be able to so alter the appearance of the accused that he cannot be identified in court and then prohibit the State from presenting evidence that that same person had been identified before his appearance was so altered. Furthermore the method used in this case was the proper one: the identifier identified the photograph she had picked out as being that of the robber, and the police officer testified that the person in the picture was the same Rickey Elvaker that was on trial.
I also wish to point out that the test for sufficiency of the evidence was changed by Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The test now is “whether, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789. Applying this test to the evidence presented, I agree that the evidence was sufficient.