Court Opinion

ID: 9634474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:14:21.158878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:03.608855
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The record clearly demonstrates that the confrontation between the witness and appellee at appellee’s certification hearing was unduly suggestive. The witness, having had no prior opportunity to identify appellee, observed him standing at the bar of the court. Appellee was the only young blac^male in the courtroom. I agree with the Superior Court that a remand is necessary to give the Commonwealth an opportunity to prove by clear and convincing evidence, if it can, that' the identification at trial had an independent source. If the Commonwealth fails to meet this burden, then appellee would be entitled to a new trial free of the tainted evidence.
*27The majority’s award of a new trial is both premature and unnecessary. The majority today creates a new instruction which it mandates will be available to appellee on retrial. That instruction directs the finder of fact to view the identification evidence with caution. The majority, however, allows the identification of appellee at his new trial whether or not it is tainted by the suggestive confrontation. This newly created procedure deprives appellee of his constitutional right to have the identification evidence excluded if it is not shown to have an independent origin, substantially alters the law governing the use of eyewitness identification evidence, and imposes an unwise and unnecessary burden in the trial of a criminal case.
All that is necessary here is the remand for an evidentiary hearing which the Superior Court granted to determine whether the identification of appellee at trial had a source independent of the suggestive confrontation.