Court Opinion

ID: 9703441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:56:08.503939+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:48.912626
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
DeBruler, J.
Although I agree with the majority that the pre-trial photographic display used by the police on the day after the incident was clearly impermissibly suggestive, I cannot concur in the Court’s finding that there was no substantial likelihood that the victim’s in-court identification was based on the series of suggestive pre-trial identification procedures rather than on her independent recollection of her attackers on the night of her abduction.
At the outset I believe the record of this case establishes facts which indicate the victim may have been impeded in her opportunity to observe her attackers on the night in question. While the victim’s testimony does indicate that she was with her assailants for “over an hour” as the majority states, she also testified that for both the ride out to the rape scene and the ride back (a period of twenty to twenty-five minutes each way according to her testimony) she was forced to lie on the back seat of the car with a coat over her head. The entire incident took place at night in, what was described throughout the trial as, a very severe snow storm. The victim testified that she could not describe the clothing the men wore on that night because “it was dark”.
It must also be pointed out that the display conducted on March 26, was suggestive in the extreme since in addition to only providing one picture of the co-defendants the police, however unintentionally, provided information to the victim *687which could have influenced her identification and solidified her opinion as to the identity of her attackers. The victim testified that when the police came to her house on the day after the incident they told her they had two suspects and that they had pictures of the two which they wished her to identify. They also told her that they had been lead to these suspects from papers and identification cards found in her car on the previous night. We have only recently pointed out the inherent dangers of the police providing information to a witness which implies that they have suspects and they wish only to have their suspicions confirmed through a cooperative identification. Sawyer v. State (1973), 260 Ind. 597.
Moreover, it is also important to note that in addition to the March 26 photographic display there were several subsequent suggestive pre-trial identification situations. Shortly after her official identification the victim went to the prosecutor’s office for an interview and the prosecutor took the mug shots from the folder and showed them to her. Later on the victim was asked to identify her attackers from a lineup and the prosecutor again showed the same two pictures to her several minutes before the lineup in order to assist her in her identification. In each of these displays the same and only two photographs were used as were provided to her at the March 26 display. There appears in this record, therefore, at least three incidents of highly suggestive identification procedures.
I believe it is also important to note that the victim’s positiveness in her identification of appellant increased noticeably from shortly after the crime until her in-court identification at the trial. The victim testified that on the day after her attack she told the officer the picture of appellant “looks like the man” who attacked her. At the corporeal lineup held somewhat later she failed to pick out the appellant as one of her attackers but instead selected someone else. Thus the victim was able to identify appellant at trial (when he was sitting with a co-defendant and his attorney at the counsel table) but *688had previously been unable to pick out appellant at a lineup which was held at a point in time closer to the abduction.
It seems clear from this evidence outlined above that we are faced with not just one but an entire series of highly suggestive pre-trial identification procedures. Concurrently with this series of suggestive displays the victim’s ability to identify appellant has increased from a stage where she was not able to pick him out of a lineup and where she identify a picture as one which “looks like” appellant to a trial setting where she can positively identify appellant as one of her attackers.
When we weigh the relevant factors concerning the extent and number of suggestive identification procedures, the opportunity for independent identification at the time of the incident and the varying ability of the witness to identify appellant I do not believe we can find that there is no substantial likelihood the in-court identification was a product of the numerous suggestive factors with which we are faced here. Foster v. California (1969), 394 U.S. 440, 89 S. Ct. 1127, 22 L. Ed. 2d 402; U.S. v. Gambrill, 449 F. 2d 1148 (D. C. Cir., 1971). The judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted.
Note.—Reported in 299 N. E. 2d 824.