Court Opinion

ID: 9456702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:00:29.540026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:04.830626
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the result, but I wish to state my misgivings about the in-eourt identification of appellant Toney by one of the witnesses.
Since appellants were the only persons seated at the defense counsel table except their attorneys who were racially distinguishable from them, the courtroom identifications were made under highly suggestive circumstances. Rowena Lewis, a witness who positively identified Toney at trial, had been unable to give police a description of the man she later identified as Toney and was unable, three days after the robbery, to positively identify Toney at a police lineup conducted in accordance with the requirements of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). In Wade, supra, at 228-229, 87 S.Ct. 1926, the Supreme Court was concerned with the untrustworthiness of eyewitness identification and with the suggestiveness which is often permitted, even inadvertently, to influence identifying witnesses. The Court decided to require the presence of a lawyer at a lineup to insure the essential fairness of identification procedures. The Court laid down no guidelines for in-eourt identification perhaps because, under Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963), defense counsel is present in the courtroom (unless waived) and the trial judge who superintends the proceedings can be expected to prevent undue suggestiveness. Nevertheless, essential fairness should require exclusion of Rowena Lewis’ identification of Toney under these highly suggestive circumstances because she was unable to make an identification under the laboratory conditions of a lineup held in accordance with the Wade standards. See Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301-302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967).
However, because of the highly convincing quality of the testimony by other witnesses whose identifications of Toney were not so tainted, I regard the error as harmless.