Court Opinion

ID: 9451307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:13:26.57672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:39.719832
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(with whom Judge KAUFMAN concurs), concurring:
I concur.
I agree with my brother Moore that the hospital room show-up did not violate any of Stovall’s constitutional rights. The police found Mrs. Behrendt grievously wounded and in a state of severe shock at about 1:00 A.M. on August 24. At that time, in an incomplete and somewhat confused statement made to a police officer before she was given medical treatment, Mrs. Behrendt indicated that she had seen her attacker. The police were not allowed to interview Mrs. Behr-endt on August 24, the day of her extensive surgery, or to present Stovall to her for identification purposes. They were therefore fully justified in continuing their investigation by bringing Sto-vall to the hospital at 1:00 P.M. on August 25, after Stovall’s morning arraignment.
The type of emergency facing the police is relevant to the question of whether the show-up procedure was so unfair as to amount to a denial of due process. I agree with my brother Moore that the method of an identification normally goes to the weight of the evidence. Given the circumstances surrounding the identification, the full opportunity afforded defense counsel to cross-examine Mrs. Behrendt at trial, and the positive court room identification made by Mrs. Behrendt, I find no violation of Stovall’s right to due process. Likewise, Stovall’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel argument has no merit, particularly since counsel could have had little or no effect on what took place in the hospital room.1 *741And I agree with the majority’s disposition of the Fifth Amendment claim.
Unlike my brother Friendly, I see no need to inquire into whether the police violated New York law when they failed to deliver Stovall to a sheriff immediately after arraignment. Whether or not there may have been a technical violation of New York law is no grounds for reversal here. No objection was made to this procedure at trial. Therefore there was no need for the court to inquire into whether it was proper and appropriate for the police to retain custody of Stovall following his production before the district court judge. Nor is there a federal constitutional right to be committed to a sheriff rather than to the police pending arraignment. Since there was no due process violation in the hospital room identification, the police procedure violated none of Stovall’s federal rights.
I differ with my brother Moore’s discussion of the prejudicial error issue, although I agree that the use made of the hospital room identification at Stovall’s trial did not amount to prejudicial error even if that identification procedure itself violated Stovall’s rights.
The Supreme Court has prescribed a rigorous standard of prejudicial error when dealing with police activities that violate fundamental constitutional rights. See, e. g., Fahy v. State of Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171, (1963); United States v. Guerra, 334 F. 2d 138, 143-147, (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 936, 85 S.Ct. 337, 13 L.Ed.2d 346 (1964). Assuming for the moment that the hospital room identification violated Stovall’s constitutional rights, testimony as to that identification at trial was reversible error if “there is a reasonable possibility that the evidence complained of might have contributed to the conviction.” Fahy v. State of Connecticut, 375 U.S. at 86-87, 84 S.Ct. at 230.
Mrs. Behrendt made a positive court room identification of Stovall, and she indicated that this identification was the product of her recollection of the night of the crime.2
3 It seems highly probable that the use made of the hospital room procedure at trial did not influence this court room identification.3 Under these circumstances, the impact of testimony *742as to the hospital room incident was cumulative.
Nevertheless, there remains the possibility that Mrs. Behrendt’s ability reliably to identify Stovall at trial was in fact psychologically colored by the impact of the previous confrontation in the hospital room. This “prejudice” does not depend upon whether there was testimony as to the hospital room identification. And the only way to eliminate this aspect of prejudice would have been to exclude the hospital room identification and to prohibit Mrs. Behrendt from making any identification at trial. I am unwilling to hold that so broad an exclusionary rule should flow from a constitutionally infirm pre-trial identification because the likelihood that an unbiased court room identification can still be made seems great and because eye witness evidence, despite its human frailties, plays a vital role in criminal prosecutions. I am particularly unwilling to exclude all identification in this case because Mrs. Behrendt’s testimony seems reliable and because the alleged police improprieties were unintentional and technical. It was proper to admit this evidence and to allow the jury to weigh its reliability.
If Mrs. Behrendt should be permitted to make a court room identification, then use of the hospital room identification becomes cumulative and harmless. More significantly, it is fairer to Stovall to permit testimony and full cross-examination concerning the hospital room procedure because only then can the jury know that the unequivocal court room identification may be the product of previous police persuasion rather than an accurate recollection of the night of the crime. At Stovall’s trial, these considerations are evident: outside of the prosecutor’s opening address, the first mention of the hospital incident came during the cross-examination of two policemen who accompanied Stovall to the hospital. And defense counsel concentrated heavily on this incident in his cross-examination of Mrs. Behrendt while the prosecutor only brought it out casually. Consequently, I conclude on the facts of this case that the use made of the hospital room identification not only was harmless error but indeed was the fairest method of handling Stovall’s trial.

. Indeed, I wonder whether the right to counsel doctrines of Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977 and Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 apply to circumstances which do not ultimately involve a danger of self-incrimination. A person lawfully arrested and detained has no right to have his lawyer present to supervise all his activities that come within the realm of prison or detention house administration. Likewise, I should think that the police can search the defendant and his effects in the absence of counsel. Only when police conduct threatens to violate a personal right of the defendant that retains vitality during detention — e.g., the privilege against self-incrimination — or when police practices unfairly prevent the defense attorney from preparing his case — a literal deprivation of the right to counsel — must a court interfere to guarantee that the right is properly preserved. Viewed in this light, common sense finds a clear distinction between the case supposed by Judge Friendly in his dissent, where counsel is excluded from a court room identification at trial, and the failure to appoint counsel to accompany an accused to a pre-trial identification. Cf. United States v. Cone, 354 F.2d 119, n. 13 (2 Cir. 1965).

. Relevant portions of Mrs. Behrendt’s direct testimony are as follows :
“Q. What did you observe or what did you hear from that point on? A. I saw he was tall and strong and medium color, a medium brown, and I saw his face clearly because I jumped at him head on, and then a moment later when he stabbed me I fell down and I was already on the floor when my husband — when I saw my husband dead * * *
“Q. Now, this man that you speak of, that you saw, did you ever see him before that night? A. No.
“Q. Have you ever seen him since? A. Yes.
“Q. Are you able to point out who he is? A. Yes.
“Q. Will you do so? A. This Negro sitting there (indicating).
“The Court: Indicating the defendant. “A. (Continuing) In the light coat.
“The Court: Indicating the defendant.
“The Witness: What?
“The Court: Indicating the defendant, you say?
“The Witness: Yes.
“Q. Did you ever see him anywheres before you saw him here in court today?
A. Yes, in the hospital.
“Q. Do you know who he was accompanied by at that time? A. By several detectives, I think.
“Q. Do you know approximately when this was with relation to the time that you went into the hospital? A. I’m not quite sure. It was a few days after the operation when I was fully conscious. [It was in fact one day.]”
This was the only reference in Mrs. Behrendt’s testimony to the hospital room identification until defense counsel’s thorough cross-examination on that subject.

. Mrs. Behrendt testified that she had not seen Stovall since the hospital room identification. Likewise, the prosecutor in his opening statement mentioned the existence of the hospital room incident but he said that he could only speculate as to whether Mrs. Behrendt would be able to make a court room identification. Since Mrs. Behrendt was excluded from • the court room (as a witness) when the incident was brought out during the cross-examination of two policemen, and since no mention was made of it during her direct testimony until after her court room identification, it seems doubtful that the use made of the hospital incident at trial colored her court room identification.