Court Opinion

ID: 9544922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:03:31.617444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:47.114856
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Justice,
dissenting:
Although the majority determines that Hanneman’s photographic identification of the defendant was unnecessarily suggestive and testimony regarding this identification should not have been admitted at the defendant’s trial, it nevertheless concludes that the admission of this testimony was harmless error. With this conclusion I disagree. In my view the admission of evidence relating to the out-of-court identification cannot be considered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and, under these circumstances, the defendant should be granted a new trial.
In determining whether the admission of constitutionally tainted evidence is harmless, the critical inquiry is whether the prosecution, as the beneficiary of the constitutional error, is able to establish “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 825, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710 (1967); see also Germany v. People, 198 Colo. 337, 599 P.2d 904 (1979). The record in this case belies the notion that the admission of the tainted out-of-court identifica*389tion evidence was harmless error under the Chapman standard.
The identification of the defendant as the author of the forged prescriptions was the critical issue at trial. Hanneman’s suppression testimony placed the defendant at the scene of the offenses and directly implicated him in the crimes charged. The evidence relating to Hanneman’s out-of-court photographic identification was used by the prosecution to bolster Hanneman’s in-court identification of the defendant at the suppression hearing. Without the out-of-court identification evidence one can only speculate as to what verdicts the jury might have returned on the three counts. Considering the significance of the identification issue to this case, I am not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the admission of the unconstitutionally suggestive photographic identification did not contribute to the jury’s verdict.
That there might be evidence sufficient to support the conviction apart from the tainted out-of-court identification is not determinative of the harmless error issue. A new trial is the only appropriate remedy to cure the constitutional infirmity which occurred here.
I am authorized to say that Justice DU-BOFSKY and Justice LOHR join me in this dissent.