Court Opinion

ID: 9877261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-27 15:52:31.492158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:20.360043
License: Public Domain

Lindley, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. As stated in my concurrence in the prior appeal, I do not believe that there is any legal basis to suppress identification testimony of a witness based on the alleged unreliability of the witness’s identification unless the identification is the product of unduly suggestive police procedures (see People v Reeves, 140 AD3d 1584, 1587-1588 [2016]). Indeed, a suppression court is not required to make “a threshold inquiry into the reliability of . . . identification testimony” (People v Reeves, 120 AD2d 621, 622 [1986], lv denied 69 NY2d 715 [1986]), and “the reliability of untainted in-court identification testimony ‘presents an issue of fact for jury resolution’ ” (People v Gilmore, 135 AD2d 828, 828 [1987], lv denied 71 NY2d 896 [1988]; see People v Dukes, 97 AD2d 445, 445 [1983]).
This is the first reported case in New York where identification testimony has been suppressed in the absence of a finding that the identification was influenced by unduly suggestive police procedures. In People v Nelson (79 AD2d 171 [1981]), cited by the majority, we did not suppress identification testimony on reliability grounds, nor did the trial court. Instead, the trial court suppressed identification testimony “because the People failed to produce at the suppression hearing for the trial court’s review the photo array” shown to the witness by the police (id. at 174). Without the photo array, the People could not have met their initial burden of establishing “the lack of any undue suggestiveness” in the identification (People v Chipp, 75 NY2d 327, 335 [1990], cert denied 498 US 833 [1990]).
Although we stated in Nelson that the “ ‘linchpin’ in determining the admissibility of a pretrial identification at a trial is reliability” (id. at 174), in doing so we quoted from Manson v Brathwaite (432 US 98, 114 [1977]), which held that, even when an identification is the product of unduly suggestive police procedures, the witness may nevertheless offer identification testimony at trial if, upon an examination of the totality of circumstances, it appears that the testimony “possesses certain features of reliability” (id. at 110). The federal rule set forth in Manson, which was rejected by the New York State Court of Appeals shortly after Nelson was decided (see People v Adams, *117853 NY2d 241, 249-251 [1981]; see also People v Marte, 12 NY3d 583, 586-587 [2009], cert denied 559 US 941 [2010]), does not stand for the proposition that identification testimony should be suppressed on reliability grounds absent a finding that it was influenced by unduly suggestive police procedures.
In any event, even assuming, arguendo, that the majority is correct that we may suppress identification testimony that we deem to be insufficiently reliable, I do not find anything unreliable about the identification testimony at issue here. The undercover officer who purchased cocaine from defendant looked at a photograph of defendant approximately 15 to 20 minutes before the transaction and then again 10 minutes afterward. In my view, that was a reliable way for the undercover officer to identify the person who sold cocaine to him.
The only conceivable basis to conclude that the undercover officer’s identification of defendant was unreliable is if the person depicted in the photograph was not defendant but, instead, another man with the same name and similar looks who also happened to live in Syracuse. The People produced the photograph at the hearing and offered it in evidence, but defendant opposed its admission on the ground that it had not been turned over prior to trial. County Court sided with defendant and refused to admit the photograph in evidence. Although defendant was able to see the photograph at the hearing, he has never contended that the photograph was of someone else. In fact, defendant has never contended, not even on resubmission of this appeal, that the undercover officer’s identification of him was unreliable. Instead, defendant merely contends that the identification was tainted by suggestive police procedures. Thus, the majority is reversing the judgment of conviction and suppressing evidence based on a ground that has never been raised by defendant.
Finally, I note that, if the undercover officer’s identification of defendant is so unreliable that he should be barred from testifying about it at trial, it would seem that the verdict, which was based largely on the officer’s identification testimony, would be against the weight of the evidence. Yet the majority rejected defendant’s challenge to the weight of the evidence (Reeves, 140 AD3d at 1584), properly so in my view. I understand that there is a difference between the legal admissibility of identification testimony and the weight that should be accorded to such evidence, but the fact remains that the majority is upholding a verdict that is based almost exclusively on testimony that it deems too unreliable to present to the jury.
*1179Present — Carni, J.P., Lindley, DeJoseph, NeMoyer and Trout-man, JJ.