Court Opinion

ID: 9558931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:19:10.09314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:39.823916
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from Part III of the majority opinion. The defendant’s motion to suppress the showup-identification should have been granted because of undue and unnecessary suggestibility attaching to that confrontation, and the evidence of that identification should not have been admitted at trial.
While reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony, Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 114, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 2253, 53 L.Ed.2d 140, 154 (1977), the one-on-one confrontation in this case was so inherently and unnecessarily suggestive as to make any identification elicited therefrom unreliable under constitutional standards of admissibility.
The Supreme Court in United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 234, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1936, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149, 1161 (1966), aptly characterized the identification technique employed here when it noted that “it is hard to imagine a situation more clearly conveying the suggestion to the witness that the one presented is believed guilty by the police.” See also Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). The underlying rationale of the Wade-Gilbert-Stovall trilogy is the protection of the integrity of the fact-finding process from mistaken identifications which are incapable of repair at trial and whose irreparability is brought about by suggestive pre-trial techniques similar to that employed in this case.
Stovall v. Denno, supra, established a basis in due process of law for suppression of unnecessarily suggestive pre-trial confrontations. Stovall teaches that a high degree of necessity-such as an eye witness in critical condition-will permit a high degree of suggestibility in the identification technique. Thus, Stovall expressly sanctions a showup under true emergency conditions. The converse of this principle, however, is applicable to this case, namely, a low degree of necessity cannot justify a high level of suggestibility. See, e. g., Foster v. California, 394 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 1127, 22 L.Ed.2d 402 (1969).
*240Here, there was no showing of the type of necessity or urgency that might otherwise have justified the unduly suggestive technique employed by the police. The witness-Vanatta would have been available for a traditional line-up procedure at a subsequent time and such line-up procedure, in contrast to the showup, would have served as a useful method of learning the truth about the identity of the robber. See C. Whitebread, Criminal Procedure § 18.05 (1980). The mere fact that the police have apprehended a suspect does not provide the necessity or urgency that constitutionally permits the return of a suspect to the scene of the crime for a showup with the victim while the suspect, wearing clothing similar to the robber, is seated in the front seat of the police vehicle.
If an arrest in the field constitutes an exception to the constitutional prohibition against unnecessarily suggestive pre-trial identification techniques, then the exception has swallowed the rule and there is no such creature as an unduly suggestive showup. The controlling precedents of the United States Supreme Court indicate otherwise. E. g., Manson v. Brathwaite, supra; Foster v. California, supra. In fact, Manson requires trial courts to weigh against the indicia of reliability “the corrupting effect of the suggestive identification itself,” 432 U.S. at 114, 97 S.Ct. at 2253, 53 L.Ed.2d at 154, in resolving motions to suppress identification testimony. The trial court failed to apply the proper standard in this case and the pre-trial identification evidence should have been excluded as the product of an unnecessarily suggestive showup.
I would reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial.