Court Opinion

ID: 9762159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:14:20.179769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:31.306503
License: Public Domain

Buser, J.,
concurring: I concur with this decision but write separately because, unlike Judge Standridge, I believe the show-up identification used in this case was not unnecessarily suggestive.
*388At the outset, I disagree that the trial court ruled the show-up identification was unnecessarily suggestive. I base my conclusion on the trial judge’s holding at the end of the suppression hearing: “[t]he Court finds that [the eyewitness identification] is not so unnecessarily suggestive or that the identification was so indefinite that suppression would be warranted in this case, so I will deny the motion to suppress the identification.” Notably, in their appellate briefing, both the State and Reed argue their respective legal positions with the understanding that the trial court held the show-up identification was not unnecessarily suggestive or unreliable. This is also my understanding of the trial court’s finding with regard to the suggestiveness of the show-up identification procedure.
In explaining her independent legal conclusion that the show-up was unnecessarily suggestive, my colleague states: “The record contains no facts to explain why Orabuena was requested to identify Reed at the mall under tírese suggestive circumstances instead of at the police station, where the identification undoubtedly could have proceeded under less suggestive circumstances.” 45 Kan. App. 2d at 381. I disagree with this rationale. This statement suggests the State had a burden to prove why a less suggestive identification procedure was not used in this case.
My colleague’s approach fits the standard typically applied to suppression motions generally, where a defendant is “urging the exclusion of evidence deriving from a constitutional violation.” See Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 113 n.13, 97 S. Ct. 2243, 53 L. Ed. 2d 140 (1977). If the State conducts a warrantless search and is “seeking to invoke [an] exception” to the warrant requirement, for example, it bears the burden of proof on the applicability of that exception. See State v. Schur, 217 Kan. 741, 743, 538 P.2d 689 (1975).
In this case, however, “a suggestive preindictment identification procedure does not in itself intrude upon a constitutionally protected interest.” Manson, 432 U.S. at 113 n.13. The rule articulated in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301-02, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1199 (1967), protects “an evidentiary interest and, at the same time . . . recognizefes] the limited extent of that interest in *389our adversary system.” Manson, 432 U.S. at 113. In that situation the defendant bears the burden to prove an identification was unnecessarily suggestive. See United States v. Martin, 391 F.3d 949, 952 (8th Cir. 2004); United States v. Beverly, 369 F.3d 516, 538 (6th Cir. 2004); United States v. Lawrence, 349 F.3d 109, 115 (3d Cir. 2003); English v. Cody, 241 F.3d 1279, 1282-83 (10th Cir. 2001); United States v. Donaldson, 978 F.2d 381, 385 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Marson, 408 F.2d 644, 650 (4th Cir. 1968).
Stated another way, the State does not need to prove that alternative means of identification were considered and reasonably ruled out by law enforcement officers. Although Kansas does not follow the “one-step analysis” used in Massachusetts, see State v. Hunt, 275 Kan. 811, 815-17, 69 P.3d 571 (2003), I agree with its Supreme Judicial Court that the “question is whether the [identification] procedure used was permissible, not whether an alternative would have been better.” Commonwealth v. Martin, 447 Mass. 274, 283, 850 N.E.2d 555 (2006). We should not expect judges “to determine in each case the best method of police investigation, a task for which few of us are suited . . . and one that our legal system generally assigns to the executive branch of government.” 447 Mass. at 283-84,
Accordingly, where a police officer drove a robbery victim slowly past two suspects “illuminated by police car fights . . . handcuffed and surrounded by law enforcement officers,” our Supreme Court did not discuss alternative means of identification. State v. Alires, 246 Kan. 635, 636, 792 P.2d 1019 (1990). Rather, our Supreme Court stated: “[W]e have approved one-on-one confrontations shortly after the commission of an offense” and found “nothing unnecessarily suggestive.” 246 Kan. at 640-41. I would make a similar finding in the present case.
Bukaty, J., joins in the foregoing concurring opinion.