Court Opinion

ID: 9456349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:50:26.100751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:56.870621
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
Making the “two-pronged” inquiry which we have held to be mandated by Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301-302, *138587 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967) and Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), see United States ex rel. Phipps v. Follette, 428 F.2d 912, 914-915 (1970), I am bound to say that the station-house identification was “unnecessarily” [Stovall] or “impermissibly” [.Simmons] suggestive. This was no “one-man show-up,” which I agree is often allowable. Having seen three black men break and enter the apartment building, Mrs. Burke was shown three blacks and was told by the police “these were the three men.” Apart from that strong suggestion, the exhibition of the three together, rather than separately, improperly enhanced the likelihood that although in fact she could only recall one or two, she would identify all three. Cf. United States ex rel. Phipps v. Follette, supra, 428 F.2d at 913-914.
However, I agree that under the circumstances here, the procedure did not “give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification,” Simmons v. United States, supra, 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. at 971. Mrs. Burke was positive she had seen three men involved in the initial breaking and entry —two of whom actually entered the building with the third remaining outside. When the police arrived only a few minutes later, they found Springle and one Moore in the basement storage room, with suitcases containing the loot, and another man, Ball, in the courtyard.
Under these circumstances, it is unlikely in the last degree that Springle was mistakenly identified as one of the three men who took part in the breaking and entry of the apartments. He explained his presence in the storage room by asserting that, while at a restaurant earlier that day, he and Moore had for the first time met a person named Lee who offered to pay them each a few dollars to help move some suitcases. Although both he and Moore agreed to the offer, Springle asserted that the other two men left for the apartment building about twenty minutes ahead of him and that when he arrived, the door to the rear of the building was already open and Lee and Moore were in the storage room. He went on to say that Lee then left to hail a cab. Finally, while acknowledging an acquaintanceship with Ball, whom the police found in the courtyard, Springle insisted that Ball had not been at the restaurant when he and Moore encountered Lee and had not accompanied him to the apartment.
Springle’s story is not merely difficult to credit but leaves important facts unexplained. For one thing, it is utterly incredible that Lee, the asserted instigator of the whole series of events, should simply have disappeared although the burglars were unaware that Mrs. Burke had alerted the police. For another, Springle’s claim that he did not leave the restaurant for twenty minutes after Lee and Moore had departed conflicts with Mrs. Burke’s testimony that the police arrived only a couple of minutes after she reported having seen three persons involved in a burglary. Finally, even if one should assume that “Lee” did in fact exist and that he and Moore were the two people whom Mrs. Burke saw actually enter the building (with Lee having exited and disappeared subsequently), Springle’s exposition failed to account for the presence of Ball. In sum, if Mrs. Burke was mistaken in identifying Springle as one of the three burglars, there would be no explanation of the events that would commend itself to a rational mind.
When all this is added to the facts recited in my brother Moore’s opinion, it is apparent there was no denial of due process here even though Mrs. Burke was unable to repeat the station-house identification in the courtroom, see United States ex rel. Phipps v. Follette, supra, 428 F.2d at 914-915 n. 3.