Court Opinion

ID: 9776409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:34:14.115827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:38.474180
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the result reached and I agree with Smith, Special Judge, that the lineup question cannot be resolved against movant simply on the basis the court did not believe movant’s testimony about an invalid lineup.
It is undisputed the state did arrange for and subject movant to a lineup. It is the obligation of the state to use only a fair lineup. Therefore, once movant produces evidence challenging the lineup the burden of going forward with evidence to show it was constitutionally permissible should shift to the state. Merely because the trier of the fact does not believe the movant does not establish the opposite is true and that the lineup was a valid one. In almost every case the state will be in the best position to show the lineup was valid and if it remains silent when it has witnesses who should be able to contradict movant if his version is false, the failure to come forward, to quote from Sims v. Georgia, 389 U.S. 404, 406, 88 S.Ct. 523, 525, 19 L.Ed.2d 634, “ . . . lends support to the conclusion that their testimony would not, in fact, have rebutted petitioner.”
Although Beishir’s trial antedated United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 and Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed.2d 1178, it was recognized in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L. Ed.2d 1199, that the claim the lineup was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable identification that the defendant was denied due process of law is a recognized ground of attack, citing Palmer v. Peyton, (CCA 4) 359 F.2d 199, which invalidated a conviction on this basis where the lineup was held in 1957. The test applied is the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confrontation. We have made this inquiry as to a 1965 confrontation, State v. Blevins (Mo.Sup.) 421 S.W.2d 263, an early 1967 confrontation; State v. Keeney (Mo.Sup.) 425 S.W.2d 85 and a 1965 confrontation; State v. Cook (Mo.Sup.) 440 S.W.2d 461, where the trials all occurred prior to Stovall v. Denno. In fact, the state concedes in its brief that “ . . . certain standards for lineups must be met no matter when the lineup is held. Considering the totality of the circumstances the pre-trial identification cannot be so unnecessarily suggestive as to lead to irreparable mistaken identification.”
When we look at the evidence at mov-ant’s original trial as well as that at the 27.26 hearing, it cannot be said the circumstances of the lineups were so suggestive and unfair as to lead to irreparable mistaken identification. The lineups used with two of the eye witnesses were of dubious validity, but the lineup used with another was not and even in the first instance, the two witnesses had plausible grounds for identifying defendant in court on the basis of what they saw of him at the time of the robbery. Therefore, I do not believe on the complete record here it can reasonably be said the lineup procedures were so unfair as to deprive defendant of due process on the identification issue or that the finding of the trial court on this issue was clearly erroneous.
Additionally, I think we should amend rule 27.26 to include relief on the basis of newly discovered evidence of another’s guilt of the crime of which defendant has been convicted. This is the view of the Standards Relating to Post-Conviction Remedies of the American Bar Association project on the Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice. The position of the Standards is that a post conviction remedy ought to be sufficiently broad to provide relief for meritorious claims challenging judgments of conviction including claims “that there exists evidence of material facts, not theretofore presented and heard, which require vacation of the conviction or sentence in the interest of justice”, Post-*888Conviction Remedies, 2.1 Grounds for Relief (a) (v), pp. 32, 34-35.
As our rule now stands, if evidence comes to light which proves his innocence, there is nothing a defendant can do about using it to obtain a new trial unless he is lucky enough to learn about it in time to include it in his motion for a new trial. This is not reasonable or just.