Court Opinion

ID: 9727130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:20:45.326958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:33.869014
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
It was about 9:30 p.m. on June 22, and dark. Jackie Geimer and Brenda Grant stood side-by-side, along with the Grant children, and observed a man fleeing from the victim’s residence. Geimer said he was wearing a mask and looked like Tim Gage. Brenda Grant said he was not wearing a mask and looked like David Eguia. Grant’s children were ordered home and, while on the way, they saw the man run past a pickup truck which was parked in the neighborhood and saw that he did not get into the truck. The children ran on for another 100 to 150 feet and, upon arriving home, told their father, Rex Grant, what had happened. He then went out the door, got on his ten-speed, and reached the truck. His testimony described his recollection as follows:
I seen a man running down the alley and when he got three-quarters of the way down was when I first seen him and then he ran a little farther down towards the depot he went over towards the depot then bent over and from what I seen just bent over and then he got back up and started running back towards a truck which was parked on the southside of the alley.
Several neighbors joined Rex Grant at the truck as the approaching man reached the truck. It was appellant. He was perspiring. They spoke with him as they shined a flashlight on his face. Appellant then drove off. When appellant was arrested, he stated that he had been parked there because he had run out of gas.
Within an hour, appellant was arrested in his home, taken to the police station and locked alone in a cell. At about 12:20 a.m., the police led Brenda Grant and three others from the scene to the door of the cell and asked each to look in at a man they had picked up. Brenda Grant identified appellant from his facial features. The others also made positive identifications. At trial, Brenda Grant and the other three *127testified, without objection, that they had identified appellant when looking into the cell at the jail. At trial, Brenda Grant, without objection, also pointed out appellant as the man she had seen run from the house of the victim, though all the other witnesses testified that the man was wearing a mask at the time and, by reason of it, were unable to identify appellant as that man.
The conduct of the police in permitting the witnesses to confront the prisoner under these circumstances was a gross violation of the constitutional rules governing identification procedures. This confrontation occurred more than two hours after the crime, at the stationhouse, after an arrest on probable cause for the crime under investigation. It did not occur shortly after the crime, on or near the scene of the crime. It did not therefore come under the McPhearson exception to the Wade-Gilbert rule for immediate on-the-scene showups, where there is hot pursuit and the lack of facility to produce a photo array or run a live line-up. Dillard v. State (1971), 257 Ind. 282, 274 N.E.2d 387. The police procedure employed here was highly suggestive of guilt and totally unnecessary, and deserves the strongest judicial condemnation. There was, however, no contemporaneous objection to the crucial identification testimony of Brenda Grant at trial, and the claim of inadmissibility is therefore deemed waived. Zion v. State (1977), 266 Ind. 563, 365 N.E.2d 766.
If this issue had been properly raised and preserved, I would vote to reverse and order a new trial at which all identification testimony of Brenda Grant would be excluded, as would the testimony of the other witnesses describing their identification of appellant in jail. Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972). Brenda Grant’s opportunity to view the running man was very limited. The necklace found at the scene was described as merely looking like one worn by appellant. The rubber glove evidence showed no more than that appellant was in the alley, a location he admitted being in. The testimony of appellant’s confession was produced by a fellow prisoner, an unreliable source. Weighing all the factors, I would find a substantial likelihood of misidentification.
DICKSON, J., concurs.