Court Opinion

ID: 9698950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:04:38.404602+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:19.602588
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). New land mines are placed in the path of police-conducted lineup identifications of suspects in criminal cases. To be exact, three land mines, to wit:
(1) Accusatorial (?) Stage.
Upholding the lineup identification and conviction of this defendant in another credit union holdup, this court held that the defendant was represented by counsel at the lineups involved in that case, the same lineups as here involved. Wright v. State (1970), 46 Wis. 2d 75, 175 N. W. 2d 646. In another case decided the same day, this court, as to prewarrant lineups, made a distinction between investigatory and accusatorial identifications. Hayes v. State (1970), 46 Wis. 2d 93, 175 N. W. 2d 625. Here the majority tersely states, “The instant matter had also reached such (accusatorial) a stage.” This finding was made unnecessary by the earlier holding that counsel was present.
What makes the lineup here accusatorial ? The defendant was returned from Ohio under a warrant charging him with participation in a different credit union robbery. What makes viewing of an in-custody suspect, arrested on one charge, by victims or witnesses of other crimes “accusatorial”? What is left of any distinction between “investigatory” and “accusatorial”? Or is the majority now saying that any viewing of a defendant in custody on one charge is automatically “accusatorial” as to investigations of any other crimes? This is not repeating *660the Hayes test. It appears to be a reversal of Hayes to provide that there is now established a right to counsel at any in-custody lineup, regardless of whether it is investigatory or accusatorial. If this is what is intended, it should be clearly spelled out instead of being left as an explosive charge for future detonation.
(2) Sartorial Similarity.
The majority finds a fatal flaw in the identification of the defendant as one of the gang that held up the St. Elizabeth’s credit union in that the defendant and another suspect wore camel-colored coats during one of the three lineups conducted. There is no suggestion that counsel for the defendant objected in any way to the donning of the camel-hair coats. Nor is there any connection between camel-colored coats and the credit union armed holdup here involved. The robbery took place in September, hardly the season for overcoats. The testimony reveals that the defendant, wearing a jacket and carrying a gun, leaped over a counter to get at the money. That would be quite a gymnastic feat for an overcoat wearer. The attorney for the defendant on this appeal, at the time of oral argument, forthrightly stated that the camel-colored coat had no relationship to the crime here involved. The majority holds, however, that a camel-colored coat makes a person stand out.
There were four persons in the lineup, two suspects and two police officers. The viewers were to determine if they recognized any of the four as one of the holdup gang. Thus the viewers were concerned with facial features, identifying characteristics, body build, general appearance. How could putting an overcoat on a person whom the witness had seen wearing a jacket make identification of such person as one who committed the crime involved more likely? Criminals on the lam don different clothing than they wore at the scene of their crimes to escape detection, not to facilitate it. If clothing, not in any way similar to that worn at the time of the crime, is *661that important, might not form and fit be equally relevant? If one person in the lineup wears garments that are several sizes too small or too large, might not this also “attract special attention”? Perhaps police departments are to bring in tailors to insure that lineup participants are similarly attired and properly fitted. Or, is the majority saying that all persons in a lineup must don the same color and type of garment? If so, it would be best to say so, rather than to leave for the future what sartorial dissimilarities render a lineup identification subject to future attack.
(3) What Bandwagon?
The majority finds a bandwagon aspect to the lineups here involved, citing a United States Supreme Court decision in which over one hundred witnesses to various crimes were in a room and, one after the other, shouted out their identifications of the suspect as perpetrator of a number of crimes. Gilbert v. California (1967), 388 U. S. 263, 87 Sup. Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1178. No student of group psychology would deny the bandwagon aspect of shouted identifications piling one upon the other in such a mob scene. However, here the defendant was identified during three lineups as participating in two crimes: The American Motors Company and St. Elizabeth’s robberies. The record shows that there were four witnesses from the St. Elizabeth robbery at the lineup when the oral identification was made. Two of these witnesses were never able to identify the defendant as a participant in this crime. So here there was no mob scene, no band, and no wagon. In fact, since the defendant was not identified at the first lineup, any bandwagon tendency, if one there was, moved away from, not toward, the wholesale identifications the United States Supreme Court found objectionable. Additionally, the defendant, this court has found, was represented by counsel at these lineups and no objection of any type was made to having witnesses to more than one crime present. Or is the *662majority saying that a police-conducted identification lineup must be limited to one particular incident, with no witnesses or victims of other incidents permitted to be present? If that is what is meant, it goes well beyond the Gilbert Case, but it had better be stated now and not exploded later.
Prompt and proper identification of suspects is an important tool of law enforcement, not alone for the identification of one who committed a crime, but for the release from custody and suspicion of those who are cleared by the lineup. Despite its role in determining innocence as well as guilt, the majority opinion here makes hazardous the use of police-conducted, in-custody lineups. The prudent prosecutor and law officer in this state may well conclude that the use of in-custody lineups, even with the defendant, as he was here, represented by his counsel, involves jeopardizing an entire case against a particular defendant. If so, the direct confrontation between witness and suspect, or identification based upon examination of photographs, may well appeal as, perhaps less reliable, but certainly less vulnerable to later courtroom attack. If so, an important tool in seeking the truth in criminal investigations will have been taken from law enforcement officers. As always, it will be the innocent who will suffer, those inaccurately suspected of criminal involvement as well as the victims of crime and the general public. It is not too much to say that this decision places new hazards in the path of effective law enforcement, all the more fearful because their exact location and range of blast is not made clear.
The writer would affirm the conviction here, finding that the police-conducted lineup was investigatory, that it was not suggestive, and that defendant was represented by counsel who made no objection to the procedure followed. Alternatively, because the majority correctly finds the defendant’s confession to be admissible, I would hold error, if such existed, to be “. . . harmless beyond a *663reasonable doubt.” Chapman v. California (1967), 386 U. S. 18, 24, 87 Sup. Ct. 824, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705. If the concept of a criminal trial as a search for truth is to be given more than lip service, the confession itself warrants affirmance of the conviction and judgment.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Hanley joins in this dissent.