Court Opinion

ID: 9730815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:24:49.328803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:09.567011
License: Public Domain

BURKE, J., dissenting: On the hearing of the motion to suppress the evidence, Ralph R. Bean testified that on February 22, 1968, he was with Kirby when two policemen stopped and questioned them. Bean gave one of the officers his identification. They did not have a warrant for his arrest. The identification he tendered the police officers was that of Willie Shard. His name is not Willie Shard. A search of the person of Kirby revealed traveler’s checks and personal identification in the name of Willie Shard. When Willie Shard arrived at the police station in response to a call from the police, he immediately recognized Kirby and Bean as the men who robbed him. Bean testified that he was with Kirby when they found the traveler’s checks in an alley. In the trial Shard again identified the defendants as the men who robbed him. Willie Shard, the victim, positively identified Bean as a perpetrator of the crime. His identification was independent of the arrest of Bean. There was no lineup. The opinion in United States v. Wade, 388 US 218, does not hold that a lineup must be held. No lineup was held because Shard upon entering the station house immediately identified Kirby and Bean as the perpetrators of the crime. The record does not support defendant’s position that Shard’s identification was induced by the police and sustains the People’s assertion that Shard made his identification without any prompting or suggestion by a policeman. It would have been an inept gesture on behalf of the police to hold a lineup after the victim of the robbery, immediately upon entering the station house, identified the two defendants as the perpetrators. The record is devoid of any evidence that anyone prompted, suggested, intimated or forced the identification by the victim of these defendants. The jurors had before them the positive identification by Shard and the traveler’s checks and personal identification card, of Shard, which furnished strong corroboration of his identification. The jury was given all the pertinent facts surrounding the identification. I am convinced that the defendant was proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The judgment should be affirmed.