Court Opinion

ID: 9703119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:40:51.397626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:27.304601
License: Public Domain

ELDRIDGE, Judge,
dissenting:
The Court today relentlessly applies the rule that testimony of a single eyewitness identifying the accused as the perpetrator of the crime is sufficient evidence to permit a rational judge or jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In light of the circumstances of this case, I dissent.
On April 14, 1983, at approximately 7:00 a.m., Beatrice Mudge was robbed by two black males while on her way to work in Baltimore. One of the assailants pointed a gun at Mudge, told her not to move, and grabbed her purse. The two then fled. The entire incident lasted approximately five minutes.
Later on the day of the incident, Mudge described the gunman to police as approximately 15 to 16 years old, 5'7" tall, between 110 and 125 pounds, wearing a dark jacket, and carrying a silver handgun. According to Mudge, he was also wearing a stocking on his head which covered his ears but not his face. Mudge mentioned no distinctive facial features. Mudge could give no description of the other assailant. She was shown several books containing *185about 500 photographs but did not select any. A police officer then took three photographs from his pocket and showed them to Mudge. She picked one of the three as a photograph of the gunman. The police investigation ceased once this photo identification was made.
Solely on the basis of the photo identification, Larry Andre Branch was arrested and charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. Mr. Branch was 19 years old, 6'3" tall, and weighed 185 pounds. On January 30, 1984, at the jury trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, the State presented two witnesses, Mudge and one police officer. Mudge testified to the events of April 14, 1983, and identified Branch in court as the one carrying the gun on that day. On cross-examination, she acknowledged the details of the original description which she had given to police and stated her own height as 5'6". The second state witness testified only to the circumstances of the photo identification which Mudge had made. The prosecution produced no other evidence.
For the defense, Sharon Vincent, a woman with whom the defendant was living at the time of the crime, testified that she was in bed with the defendant until 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the crime. In response to questioning as to Branch’s physical characteristics, Vincent stated that he was 6'3" or 6'4" tall, and had been missing two front teeth since November 1982. The defendant’s aunt, Pauline Wright, testified that at approximately 10:00 a.m. she arrived at the house where the defendant was living and found him in his night clothing in the room he shared with Sharon Vincent. Wright testified that she needed Branch’s help that morning to carry a television set to a pawn shop. She stated that, after dressing, Branch helped her take the set to the shop. The defense introduced the pawn ticket, dated April 14, 1983, into evidence. The defendant recounted the same story as his alibi witnesses and denied participating in the robbery. He also described himself as 6'3" tall, 185 pounds, and 19 years of age.
*186On the sole basis of Mudge’s identification, the jury convicted Branch of both charges. Branch appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed the convictions in an unreported opinion. The appellate court, although recognizing “[t]hat an eminently reasonable jury could have harbored serious doubts as to [Branch’s] guilt,” applied the rule that “the positive identification of a single eyewitness, if believed by the trier of fact, is ample evidence to sustain a conviction.”
In light of the testimony presented, it is difficult to conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Branch perpetrated the crime described here. The evidence simply falls short of that required to support a conviction under the constitutional standard set forth in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). There the Supreme Court held that an accused “is entitled to ... relief if it is found that upon the record evidence adduced at the trial no rational trier of fact could have found proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” 443 U.S. at 324, 99 S.Ct. at 2791-92. The same standard has been applied in Maryland courts since 1950. See Bedford v. State, 293 Md. 172, 174-176, 443 A.2d 78 (1982).
In examining the testimony in particular cases to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to support a verdict, this Court has often been suspicious of certain inherently unreliable forms of testimony. Thus a verdict founded on testimony that is “too inconclusive, contradictory, and uncertain to be the basis of a legal conclusion,” requires reversal. Slacum v. Jolley, 153 Md. 343, 351, 138 A. 244 (1927). In Slacum, the Court reversed a judgment for the plaintiff and ordered judgment for the defendant because, inter alia, the plaintiff’s medical expert’s testimony as to the cause of death was contradictory.
In a case concerning the highway collision of the Governor’s motorcade with a bakery truck, the Court observed: “These accidents generally occur so quickly that the recol*187lection of what happens, even to the participants, is not always accurate, and the evidence often unreliable.” Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Baking Co., 172 Md. 24, 28, 190 A. 768 (1937). The Court rejected the plaintiffs contradictory evidence that the motorcade had a green light, id. at 33, 190 A. 768, and affirmed the trial court’s judgment that there was insufficient evidence against the defendant Baking Company. In Oberfeld v. Eilers, 171 Md. 332, 189 A. 203 (1937), another collision case, the Court reversed a judgment for the plaintiff. The case hinged on which truck crossed the center line of the road. The Court rejected the plaintiff’s testimony as too uncertain, because his distance estimates were inconsistent with the width of his truck and the width of the pavement. 171 Md. at 336-337, 189 A. 203. See also, Kaufman v. Balto. Transit Co., 197 Md. 141, 78 A.2d 464 (1951); Eisenhower v. Balto. Transit Co., 190 Md. 528, 59 A.2d 313 (1948). In Butler v. Reed-Avery Co., 186 Md. 686, 693, 48 A.2d 436 (1946), the Court affirmed a directed verdict for the defendant because the plaintiff’s testimony was “too confused, indistinct, uncertain and contradictory” to prove that he suffered burns by falling into defendant’s chemical effluent.
The above-cited opinions show that, in civil cases at least, this Court has generally been willing to take notice of the inherent unreliability of certain forms of eyewitness testimony, and to conclude in some cases that a verdict cannot be based on such testimony.1 For example, the Court recognized that the speed, surprise and shock of an auto accident may leave the people involved unable to recall the state of traffic signals or precisely to describe the position of vehicles. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Baking Co., supra, 172 Md. at 28, 190 A. 768.
*188The same phenomena attend a fleeting street robbery. There is no reason to assume that the victim of a mugging can always reliably identify the assailant. In fact, the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony has been well documented.2
The Supreme Court noted in United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 228, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1933, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967), that
“[t]he vagaries of eyewitness identification are well-known; the annals of criminal law are rife with instances of mistaken identification. Mr. Justice Frankfurter once said: ‘What is the worth of identification testimony even when uncontradicted? The identification of strangers is proverbially untrustworthy. The hazards of such testimony are established by a formidable number of instances in the records of English and American trials. These instances are recent — not due to the brutalities of ancient criminal procedure.’ ”
In an analysis of the unreliability of eyewitness identification, Judge Bazelon, dissenting in United States v. Butler, 636 F.2d 727, 732 (D.C.Cir.1980), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1019, 101 S.Ct. 3010, 69 L.Ed.2d 392 (1981), commented:
“There is now a wealth of literature demonstrating the tendency of [eyewitness testimony] to be inaccurate____ [M]any experts have concluded that convictions based solely on ‘one eyewitness’ identifications represent ‘con*189ceivably the greatest single threat to the achievement of our ideal that no innocent man shall be punished.’ ”
Generally in cases where this Court has sustained convictions involving single eyewitness identification testimony, there have been other indicia of the reliability of the testimony and the resulting conviction. In Mobley and King v. State, 270 Md. 76, 89, 310 A.2d 803, 811 (1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 975, 94 S.Ct. 2003, 40 L.Ed.2d 564 (1974), the Court rejected King’s contention that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for armed robbery, citing the single eyewitness rule. There, however, the reliability of the identification was enhanced by the fact that the police apprehended King minutes after the crime with cash and a weapon, and with clothes and a car described by the eyewitness.
In Wilkins v. State, 239 Md. 692, 211 A.2d 308 (1965), the witness knew the man he identified; in addition, the man who was identified admitted to being at the scene of the robbery at the time it occurred and to eluding arrest for three days thereafter. In Tucker v. State, 237 Md. 422, 206 A.2d 691 (1965), and Davis v. Warden, 235 Md. 637, 201 A.2d 672 (1964), there were two eyewitnesses whose testimony dovetailed. See also Bedford v. State, supra. In Rakes v. State, 227 Md. 172, 175 A.2d 579 (1961), the eyewitness knew his assailants. But cf. Walters v. State, 242 Md. 235, 218 A.2d 678 (1966); Coates v. State, 232 Md. 72, 191 A.2d 579 (1963).
Several cases, dealing with situations involving substantial discrepancies between the description furnished by an eyewitness to police and the actual appearance of the person convicted on the basis of that eyewitness’s testimony, have reversed the convictions in part because of those discrepancies. See, e.g., People v. Martin, 2 Cal.3d 822, 87 Cal.Rptr. 709, 471 P.2d 29 (1970); Crawley v. United States, 320 A.2d 309 (D.C.App.1974); People v. Ash, 102 Ill.2d 485, 82 Ill.Dec. 373, 468 N.E.2d 1153 (1984); State v. Gluff 285 Minn. 148, 172 N.W.2d 63 (1969). See also *190Jackson v. Fogg, 589 F.2d 108 (2d Cir.1978); United States v. Russell, 532 F.2d 1063 (6th Cir.1976); Clemons v. United States, 408 F.2d 1230, 1242 (D.C.Cir.1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 964, 89 S.Ct. 1318, 22 L.Ed.2d 567 (1969); United States v. Levi, 405 F.2d 380 (4th Cir.1968).
In a case such as this, where the sole evidence was the victim’s identification testimony, where that testimony followed an extremely suggestive photo identification procedure, where the testimony was uncorroborated, where the victim’s opportunity to observe and remember the appearance of her assailant was brief and fraught with fear, where her “description” depicted an individual six inches shorter, sixty pounds lighter, several years younger and omitted the telling detail of missing front teeth, and where the defendant’s witnesses and documentary evidence corroborated his alibi, I would hold the single eyewitness identification testimony insufficient to convict.
Judge COLE has authorized me to state that he concurs with the views expressed herein.

. In a criminal case, Kucharczyk v. State, 235 Md. 334, 201 A.2d 683 (1964), this Court held that the contradictory testimony of a mentally deficient sixteen year old was insufficient to establish the facts required for a sodomy conviction.

. See generally E. Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony (1979); N. Sobel, Eyewitness Identification (1984); P. Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases (1965); A. Yarmey, The Psychology of Eye-Witness Testimony (1979); Buckhout, Eyewitness Testimony, Scientific American, Dec. 1974, at 23; Jonakait, Reliable Identification: Could the Supreme Court Tell in Manson v. Brathwaite? 52 Colo.L.Rev. 511 (1981); Levine & Tapp, The Psychology of Criminal Identification: The Gap from Wade to Kirby, 121 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1079 (1973); McGowan, Constitutional Interpretation and Criminal Identification, 12 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 235 (1970); Comment, Expert Testimony on Eyewitness Perception, 82 Dick.L.Rev. 465 (1978); Note, Did Your Eyes Deceive You? Expert Psychological Testimony on the Unreliability of Eyewitness Identification, 29 Stan.L.Rev. 969 (1977).