Court Opinion

ID: 9714130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:31:25.427991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:23.682541
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Eoberts :
While I concur in the result, I cannot accept the position that the lineup procedures in this case satisfy due process.
The United States Supreme Court has made a thorough study of lineups and has concluded that the potential for misuse and prejudicial suggestion inherent in pre-trial confrontations is substantial. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 232, 87 S. Ct. 1926, 1935 (1967). Noting that lineups are most often used to crystallize eyewitnesses’ identification of the defendant, the Court specifically condemned various “suggestive procedures,” one of which was “. . . that only the suspect was required to wear distinctive clothing which the culprit allegedly wore.”1 Id. at 233, 87 S. Ct. at 1935.
*406Of course, as the majority observes, the instant case is governed by the pre-Wade standard, and the petitioner is entitled to relief only if the pre-trial confrontation, depending on the totality of the circumstances, was so unnecessarily suggestive as to be a violation of due process. See Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S. Ct. 967, 971 (1968) ; Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 1972 (1967).
However, the facts of this case present a possibly all too frequent police practice which should not pass unmentioned. The Commonwealth’s brief stresses the fairness of the lineup procedure involved in this case, and I, for one, cannot refrain from rejecting that contention.
The record reveals that the Commonwealth’s case depended primarily on the testimony of an eye witness, one Robert Mathis. The testimony surrounding the pre-trial confrontation is in conflict, but it appears that Mathis was Shown thousands of “Rogues Gallery Pictures,” or mug shots, and did not identify any of them as the man he had witnessed committing the crime. On the day that Mathis picked out defendant’s picture, he had been shown a group of between fifteen to eighteen pictures, all but three of which were mug shots, which have a head-on and a profile view of the suspect. The remaining three pictures were full length polaroids of people with army-style trench coats and caps. The Polaroid of defendant had been taken a few days earlier.
Two or three days subsequent to the identification of the picture, the police conducted a lineup. It is true that all five men in it were of the Negro race. However, two were at least thirty pounds lighter than defendant. More importantly, Williams was the only person in the lineup wearing a trench coat and a cap— *407the same type of clothing allegedly worn by the culprit. Had the other men in the lineup been asked to try on the coat, assuming that they were the same size as defendant, or had everyone been dressed in a similar coat, I would have no quarrel with the procedure. However, I believe that to have the defendant as the only person in the lineup wearing the costume of the man the eye witness saw commit the crime is sufficiently suggestive to be a violation of due process. By such conduct, the police unquestionably singled the defendant out as the suspect they feel committed the crime, and this is impermissible.
Having reached such a conclusion, one alternative would be to remand to the trial court, as was done in Wade, for a hearing without a jury to afford the prosecution an opportunity to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the in-court identifications were based upon observations of the suspect other than the lineup identification—in other words, to determine whether the in-court identifications had an “independent origin” or were “tainted by the illegal line-up.” Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 283, 272, 87 S. Ct. 1951, 1956 (1967). See United States v. Wade, supra, 388 U.S. at 242, 87 S. Ct. at 1940. However, two factors restrain me from urging that disposition and account for my concurrence in the result in this case.
First, the record as it stands indicates sufficient independent grounds so that the in-court identifications had an independent origin, and thus the violation of due process in the lineup was harmless error. See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S. Ct. 1726 (1969); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824 (1967).2 Among the facts that I consider im*408portant in this respect are the following: Mathis had an opportunity to observe the unmasked culprit at close tange for over two minutes in a lighted room during the daytime at the time of the crime; Mathis was able to give the police an accurate enough description of the perpetrator right after the crime so that an artist’s composite sketch was made which aided the police in first apprehending the defendant for questioning; Mathis was always positive about Ms identification; the police made no statements to Mathis alleging that Williams was their prime suspect; and defendant’s counsel conducted an extremely thorough cross-examination of all of the Commonwealth’s witnesses who were in any way involved with the lineup procedure. For these reasons, I find that the unconstitutional lineup was on this record harmless error.
Second, defendant’s counsel failed to object to any of the three separate in-court identifications of defendant by Mathis, all of which occurred prior to any of the challenged lineup testimony. Possibly defendant’s counsel would argue that he was waiting for the lineup testimony ito make his objections. However, if defendant is making an issue of mistaken identification, he must object to the in-court identifications as well, alleging that they are tainted by the complained of pre-trial confrontation. The efficient and proper administration of justice dictates that this Court not consider issues on appeal which were not raised at trial when the trial court could have corrected the error had it been brought to that court’s attention. See Commonwealth v. Simon, 432 Pa. 386, 248 A. 2d 289 (1968); Commonwealth v. Scoleri, 432 Pa. 571, 582, 248 A. 2d 295, 300 (1968) (concurring opinion).

 The other procedures condemned by the Court were as follows: “. . . that all in the lineup but the suspect were known to the identifying witness, that the other participants in the lineup were grossly dissimilar in appearance to the suspect, . . . that the witness is told by the police that they have caught the culprit after which the defendant is brought before the witness alone or is viewed in jail, that the suspect is pointed out before or during a lineup, and that *406the participants in the lineup are ashed to try on an article of clothing which fits only the suspect.” 388 U.S. at 233, 87 S. Ct. at 1935-36 (footnotes omitted).

 In my view, Harrington, as the dissent in that case observed, broadened Chapman. In Chapman, the test was that for an error to be “harmless,” it must have made no contribution to a criminal conviction. 386 U.S. at 26, 87 S. Ct. at 829. In Harrington, the *408Court shifted the inquiry to whether the untainted evidence provided “overwhelming” support for the conviction. 395 U.S. at 254, 89 S. Ct. at 1728. See 395 U.S. at 255, 89 S. Ct. at 1729 (Mr. Justice Brennan dissenting, joined by the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Marshall).