Court Opinion

ID: 9546347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:28:07.013152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:20.183396
License: Public Domain

KLEINSCHMIDT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Evidence regarding the out-of-court identification and the procedures used to procure it were elicited at trial and argued to the jury. While I agree with the majority that the pretrial identification procedures employed in this case were not unduly suggestive, I think that the Defendant was entitled to the jury instruction he requested. That instruction, based on State v. Dessureault, 104 Ariz. 380, 453 P.2d 951 (1969), would have been as follows:
The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the in-court identification of the accused is independent of any previous pretrial, out-of-court identification. If you determine that the in-court identification is not independent from any previous pretrial, out-of-court identification, then you must find from other evidence in the case that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The trial judge refused the instruction because, having held a Dessureault hearing and determined that the pretrial procedures were not unduly suggestive, he was of the opinion that no such instruction was necessary. His ruling was in agreement with the decision of Division Two of this Court in State v. Harris, 23 Ariz.App. 358, 533 P.2d 569 (1975). The problem is that Harris is flawed. I believe that if the evidence raises any issue as to the effect of pretrial identification procedures on the in-court identification of the defendant as the perpetrator of the crime, the defendant is entitled to have a properly instructed jury decide that issue.
In Dessureault, our supreme court explained how trial courts should deal with allegedly suggestive pretrial identifications at the trial level:
First, if at the trial the proposed in-court identification is challenged, the trial judge must immediately hold a hearing in the absence of the jury to determine from clear and convincing evidence whether it contained unduly suggestive circumstances. In this the burden is on the prosecution to establish from all the circumstances surrounding the pretrial identification that it was not such as to be unduly suggestive.
Second, if the trial judge concludes that the circumstances of the pretrial identification were unduly suggestive or that the prosecution has failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that they were not, then it is the prosecution’s burden to satisfy the trial judge from clear and convincing evidence that the proposed in-court identification is not tainted by the prior identification.
Third, if requested, the court must instruct the jury that before returning a verdict of guilty it must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the in-court identification was independent of the previous pretrial identification or if not derived from an independent source, it must find from other evidence in the case that the *584defendant is the guilty person beyond a reasonable doubt.
Dessureault, 104 Ariz. at 384, 453 P.2d at 955.
In Harris, the court said that the requirements laid down in Dessureault are sequential. In other words, according to Harris, unless the trial judge finds that the identification procedure was unduly suggestive but that there was no taint therefrom, the instruction referred to in the third step described in Dessureault need not be given.
There are four problems with Harris. First, the court’s statement that no instruction was necessary was dictum. No such instruction was requested in that case.
Second, nothing in Dessureault says that the instruction is not required unless the judge finds that the pretrial identification procedures were unduly suggestive. As the discussion in Dessureault is phrased, the second inquiry is sequential to the first, but the third consideration — the need for an instruction — is not sequential to anything.
Third, the only explanation which Harris gives for its conclusion is based on a misreading of the earlier decision of our supreme court in State v. Stow, 109 Ariz. 282, 508 P.2d 1144 (1973). The court in Harris said:
In State v. Stow, the court held that the failure to give the [Dessureault ] instruction was reversible error. The reason for that decision was that the pretrial identification was unduly suggestive____
Harris, 23 Ariz.App. at 359, 533 P.2d at 570 (citation omitted). What the court in Harris missed is that in Stow there was no holding either way as to whether the pretrial identification procedure in that case was unduly suggestive. Even if it can be inferred from the facts of Stow that the procedures in that case were unduly suggestive, the Stow decision does not say that an instruction would have been unnecessary if the procedures had been permissible.
Fourth, Harris also relies on State v. Milton, 86 N.M. 639, 526 P.2d 436 (App.1974) which held that it was not error to refuse an instruction like the one requested here because:
the question of improper photographic identification is a matter for the trial court to decide in ruling on the admissibility of an in-court identification.
526 P.2d at 438. There is an impermissible leap in the logic of Milton. To rule on the admissibility of evidence says nothing about the need for an instruction on the defendant’s theory of the case. Moreover, in Milton the New Mexico court relied on an earlier federal case, United States v. Sutherland, 428 F.2d 1152 (5th Cir.1970), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1078, 93 S.Ct. 698, 34 L.Ed.2d 668 (1972), and in so doing, read more into Sutherland than is there. Sutherland actually militates in favor of giving the jury instruction requested here because, without addressing the need for a jury instruction, Sutherland acknowledges that, even if the judge finds that pretrial identification procedures were not unduly suggestive, the defendant may still use the facts relating to those procedures to attack the validity of the in-court identification. This acknowledgement, coupled with the general rule that a defendant has the right to have the jury instructed on any theory of his defense which is reasonably supported by the evidence, supports the conclusion that the instruction should have been given in this case. See State v. Bolton, 182 Ariz. 290, 309, 896 P.2d 830, 849 (1995).
The majority cites State v. Moran, 109 Ariz. 30, 504 P.2d 931 (1972) for the proposition that no Dessureault instruction need be given when the pretrial identification procedures were not suggestive. In Moran however, unlike in this case, the defense never argued that the pretrial procedures were unfair or suggestive.
An analogy suggested by the Defendant strongly supports his claim on this issue. When a defendant objects to the admission of statements he made which were allegedly involuntary, the trial court must hold a hearing to determine whether such was the case. State v. Goodyear, 100 Ariz. 244, 248-49, 413 P.2d 566, 570-71 (1966). Even if the trial judge finds that the statements were voluntary, and therefore admissible, the judge must, upon request by the defendant, instruct the jury on the issue of voluntariness. State v. Linden, 136 Ariz. 129, 137-38, 664 P.2d 673, 681-82 (App.1983). Why should a question about identification be treated any differently from a question about the voluntariness of statements?
*585I would reverse and remand for a new trial.