Court Opinion

ID: 9466339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:12:42.306794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:40.594062
License: Public Domain

SNEED, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
The majority concludes that there was “a systematic plan by prison officers to twist a photographic identification procedure in a manner calculated to obtain an identification of one they suspect”; that there was no necessity to use photographic identification procedures; and that the procedures employed here created a grave likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Fortified by my examination of the photographs employed on October 27, 1972 and October 30, 1972 and the fact that, leaving aside the direct appeal process, three courts of the State of California (Superior Court of Marin County, Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District, and Supreme Court of California) and one federal court (District Court, Northern District of California) have failed to discern the “systematic plan” and to reach the conclusions so easily arrived at by the majority, I conclude that the procedures employed did not contravene the Simmons test as interpreted by this circuit.
In addition, I suggest that the application of the Simmons test in habeas corpus proceedings should be somewhat less rigorous than is the case in direct appeals from federal convictions. That is, the likelihood of irreparable misidentification should be sufficiently clear and convincing in habeas proceedings to require a setting aside of the conviction to prevent manifest injustice. This position involves recognition that a vigorous application of Simmons in the direct appeal setting rests, in part, on our supervisory powers rather than exclusively on the command of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
I. THE SIMMONS’ TEST AS USED ON DIRECT APPEAL
In applying Simmons as it would be on a direct appeal, the majority concludes much too easily that there was no necessity in this case to use photographic identification procedures. I disagree. The prison setting of the crime for which appellant was convicted and the investigation thereafter by prison officials in my opinion dictate the use of photographic identification procedures. Apparently the majority insists as a matter of constitutional law that there be employed lineups of a large group of inmates, with each suspect, or more likely a substantial group of inmates, which would include the suspects, suitably equipped with counsel, in lieu of photographic identification procedures. See p. 759 n. 1. To state the requirement reveals its impracticability. Moreover, it would impose heavy demands on the staff, strain employee relations, and expose the inmates to increased risks of bodily harm.
The prison world is unique. It differs enormously even from the precinct station-house and police headquarters. A “code of silence” strengthened by taboos against “ratting” and a pervasive fear of retaliation are characteristics of the prison social order. In this environment prison administrators and guards must function. Administrators are responsible for protecting prisoners in their custody and may be held liable for a failure to provide such protection. See, e. g., Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 178, 205 (2d Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1049, 92 S.Ct. 719, 30 L.Ed.2d 740 (1972); Bennett, Who Wants To Be Warden?, 1 New England J.Prison L. 69, 69-70 (1974). Guards, directly responsible for prison order and *761security, jealously husband their stock of authority and seek to avoid any confrontation that will deplete that stock. See National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Prison Employee Unionism: The Impact on Correctional Administration and Programs 24 — 25 (1978). To require the type of lineup the majority envisions in this setting is to insist upon jeopardizing the security and safety of all as the price of securing the constitutional protection that the majority holds appellant is entitled. We should be reluctant to fashion constitutional doctrines whose price is so dear.
In any event, necessity, or the lack of it, constitutes but part of the Simmons test. United States v. Crawford, 576 F.2d 794, 797-8 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 851, 99 S.Ct. 157, 58 L.Ed.2d 155 (1978). The strength of the majority’s position rests on the exertion of pressure by prison authorities on Almengor and Allen and the use of three photographic spreads in the manner described. Pressure was indispensable in the circumstances of this case if the crime was to be solved reasonably quickly. I repeat, prison officials must operate in a humane manner but also in a fashion that takes into account the realities of prison environment. The officials in this ease, in my opinion, merely did what we as citizens demand of them, i. e., protect the inmates by apprehending those who recently had preyed upon one of them.
The record of this case does not include the several hundred photographs shown to Almengor on October 19,1972. The spreads of October 27 and 30, 1972, are included, however. So different is the appellant’s photograph used in the October 27 spread from that of October 30 that it is difficult to accept the fact that the appellant appeared in the October 27 spread at all. Nonetheless, I must accept that fact because both appellant and appellee agree that the appellant’s photograph did appear in the October 27 spread. It remains true, however, that any failure to select the appellant’s photograph in the October 27 spread may be attributable to the fact that it bore little resemblance to the appellant’s appearance at the time of the murder of Arias.
The spreads of October 27 and 30, therefore, are not impermissibly suggestive on their face. Nor are they made so by the absence of the photographs of Ramirez, Reymundo, and Nunez. The range of choice available to Almengor and Allen remained large. Also, contrary to the majority’s characterization is the weight that must be given to Almengor’s description of the assailants of Arias and the consistency with which Vargas, one of the assailants, was identified. Admittedly the uncertainty surrounding Allen’s motivations prior to his identification of the appellant compels us to review carefully the way in which the spreads were used. Allen’s behavior, however, is consistent with an effort to avoid entanglement until his identification would yield the largest possible return to him. While such an attitude is not particularly noble, it is precisely the state of mind most prisoners would have under similar circumstances. In any event, I find it impossible to attribute his identification of appellant’s photograph to an impermissibly suggestive use of photographic spreads. That Allen was subjected to official and unofficial pressures I do not doubt; but the Simmons rule should not be distorted to enable us to condemn on constitutional grounds the inescapable use of such pressures in an investigation of a murder in a prison setting. Interpretations of our supervisorial powers or of the Constitution which ignore the realities of the environment within which they function bring discredit to both the courts and the Constitution.
II. COLLATERAL REVIEW AND SIMMONS
Should I be wrong about the application of Simmons to the facts of this case were it before us on direct appeal, I maintain that Simmons should be applied in habeas corpus proceedings so as to overturn convictions only in the case where clear and convincing evidence demonstrates that reversal is required to prevent manifest injustice. To so *762limit Simmons in habeas proceedings is in keeping with the scope the remedy historically has been given. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 475, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976); Oaks, Legal History in the High Court — Habeas Corpus, 64 Mich.L. Rev. 451 (1966). Although the scope of habeas relief has been expanded, it has remained a remedy for exceptional cases: “It is of the historical essence of habeas corpus that it lies to test proceedings so fundamentally lawless that imprisonment pursuant to them is not merely erroneous but void.” Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 423, 83 S.Ct. 822, 840, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963).
To apply Simmons in habeas proceedings to instances of manifest injustice requires recognition that “impermissible suggestiveness” for purposes of collateral review of state convictions rests on an interpretation of due process, assured by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, that may not exhaust the full reach of Simmons which, it must be remembered, arose from a direct appeal from a federal conviction. Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the Court, recognized that, in fashioning the Simmons standard, supervisorial powers, rather than constitutional commands, also could be the source of the Court’s authority. 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967. Limitation of Simmons in collateral review to “suggestiveness” so flagrant as to result in manifest injustice merely recognizes that the dictates of due process are somewhat less far reaching than are the supervisorial powers of federal courts over federal law enforcement officials. The existence of this difference appears to me to be neither unreasonable nor inconsistent with Simmons. It must be admitted that the distinction I suggest has not been utilized by the Supreme Court. See Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 196-09, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98, 121-22, 97 S.Ct. 2243, 53 L.Ed.2d 140 (1977) (J. Marshall dissenting); Pulaski, Neil v. Biggers: The Supreme Court Dismantles the Wade Trilogy’s Due Process Protection, 26 Stan.L.Rev. 1097, 1106 — 09 (1974); but see Comment, Photographic Identification: The Hidden Persuader, 56 Iowa L.Rev. 408, 425-26 (1970). Nor has this circuit employed it. See United States v. Allison, 414 F.2d 407, 409 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 968, 90 S.Ct. 449, 24 L.Ed.2d 433 (1969); United States v. Baxter, 492 F.2d 150, 170-71 (9th Cir.), cert. dismissed, 414 U.S. 801, 94 S.Ct. 16, 38 L.Ed.2d 38 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 940, 94 S.Ct. 1945, 40 L.Ed.2d 292 (1974); United States v. Jones, 512 F.2d 347, 351 (9th Cir. 1975); cf. United States v. King, 433 F.2d 937, 938 (9th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 976, 91 S.Ct. 1681, 29 L.Ed.2d 142 (1971) (the court quoted Mr. Justice Harlan’s opinion that the Supreme Court has both supervisory and constitutional powers of review).
Also, Stone v. Powell, supra, while useful as an analogy, does not precisely justify my position because there the evidence admitted in the state proceedings in no way could be thought to have been “created” by improper official conduct. Its admissibility might be barred because of an improper search and seizure, but its genuineness and probity could not be questioned. Here the situation is different. In court identifications carry some taint whenever any non-frivolous issue regarding the use of photographic spreads is raised. The taint, moreover, puts in issue the truth of the in court identification. It follows, therefore, that the balancing process employed by the Court in Stone v. Powell, in which the utility of the exclusionary rule is weighed against the costs of extending it to collateral review, is not applicable here. A different approach must be employed, one in which the constitutional standard employed in collateral review is somewhat less demanding than the supervisorial standard employed on direct appeal.
Notwithstanding the inapplicability of Stone v. Powell’s balancing process, it remains true that its emphasis upon the opportunity for full and fair litigation in the state courts is equally applicable here. 428 U.S. at 494, 96 S.Ct. 3037. This opportunity to litigate an issue as imprecise as “impermissible suggestiveness” in the state courts strongly suggests that collateral review by federal courts frequently is redundant. Re*763petitive collateral review employing a standard so amorphous more resembles a game of chance than it does the wise administration of criminal justice. To so employ the Great Writ is to corrupt, not enhance it. See Sneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 275, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (Powell, J., concurring). I would affirm the district court.