Court Opinion

ID: 9710753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:16:57.275342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:59.756417
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Underwood, dissenting: My problem with the majority opinion lies in the fact that it seems to apply to Wade, Gilbert and Stovall retroactively to an extent greater than that necessitated by the opinions in those cases. I agree that a pre-Stovall identification may be attacked on trial and direct appeal as insufficient — I do not agree that Wade, Gilbert and Stovall reopened to this attack every closed case in which a defendant might now assert that his pre-Stovall identification procedure denied him due process. Nor am I at all certain that the end result of the identification proceedings in this case was a denial of due process to the defendant. He was not masked during the robbery, and one of the witnesses had engaged in a struggle with him, obviously giving her a close view. All four persons in the laundromat at the time of the robbery identified defendant at trial as one of the robbers. True, the station-house identification proceedings were less than desirable, but the totality of the circumstances here does not convince me that a denial of due process occurred. This, coupled with my uncertainty as to the precise import of the majority opinion, prompts this dissent. Solfisburg, C.J., also dissenting.