Court Opinion

ID: 9474546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:01:06.682116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:10.275316
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Where identification procedures are “so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification,” due process demands that the identification testimony be suppressed. Sanchell v. Parratt, 530 F.2d 286, 293 (8th Cir.1976). Here, the identification procedures made it all but inevitable that Tatum, Smith, and Trammell would identify Cotton as the perpetrator and therefor were impermissibly suggestive.
On the day of the incident, Trammell viewed at least fifty photographs and did not identify any, although Cotton’s photograph was one of those he viewed. More than a month later, he was shown additional photographs. The police told him that the suspect was in this set. Cotton was the only man in any of the photographs to appear in jail coveralls. Trammell identified Cotton.
Approximately two weeks after the incident, Tatum and Smith separately viewed several hundred photographs. Both women tentatively identified Cotton as the person who had been in the Ladies Center. That same evening, both women viewed Cotton in a one man show-up. Even then, *323Tatum testified that she could not positively identify Cotton as her assailant.
In light of the above circumstances, the witnesses had no real choice other than to identify Cotton as the perpetrator of this crime. Police procedures selected Cotton for the witnesses. He was in jail coveralls for Trammell, and he was the only live body presented to Tatum and Smith. These procedures were unnecessarily suggestive. The identification testimony should not have been admitted.