Court Opinion

ID: 9454405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:45:53.887879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:06.552101
License: Public Domain

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I join in the opinion of the court. Because the Clemons case is one that has prompted particular reflection on my part — I have been pondering it since I first joined, with unexpressed reservation, in the July 1967 order affirming without opinion — I hope I may be permitted to try my hand at a personal statement of what I regard as the appropriate doctrinal context.
My opinion is not intended to undercut the court’s opinion in Clemons, though I recognize that the other judges concurring in Clemons may not agree with all or most of what I say here.
A “totality of the circumstances” test is appropriate in these pre-Wade, pre-Stovall identifications where we are dealing with a “due process” claim, and not a claim of denial of effective assistance of counsel or of other specifically enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
I further think it appropriate — particularly in cases where the trial as well as the identification preceded Wade, Gilbert and Stovall — that the court assess not only the “totality of circumstances” surrounding the challenged identification, but also the totality of circumstances at trial concerning the issue of identification, i. e. the totality of proof and other factors bearing on the likelihood of misidentification. The mere fact that some “unreliable” identification testimony was received does not establish a denial of the due process right to a fair trial.1 That right is to be tested *1251by assessing the totality of proof on the identification issue. The soundness of making a due process right depend on a review of evidence becomes clear when one focuses on the interests protected retroactively by the Simmons-Stovall due process right.2 Unlike the interests preserved by the guarantee of counsel or some of the other specific guarantees, the interests guarded by Stovall cannot so easily be factored out and assessed independently of the evidence.
In essence what the Stovall due process right protects is an evidentiary interest. Identification testimony is a particularly important kind of evidence, so important as to occasion exclusionary rulings that are sweeping in prospective application.3 But we are dealing here with the right to a retroactive condemnation of a pre-Wade admission of the identification evidence.
It is part of our adversary system that we accept at trial much evidence that has strong elements of untrustworthiness— an obvious example being the testimony of witnesses with a bias. While identification testimony is significant evidence, such testimony is still only evidence, and, unlike the presence of counsel, is not a factor that goes to the very heart — the “integrity” — of the adversary process.
Counsel can both cross-examine the identification witnesses4 and argue in summation as to factors causing doubts as to the accuracy of the identification— including reference to both any suggestibility in the identification procedure and any countervailing testimony such as alibi.
Since the interest protected is in essence an evidentiary one, denial of the retroactive right recognized in Stovall and explicated in Simmons 5 must depend on the assessment of all the factors and evidence bearing on the identification issue. The presence of other untainted identification testimony, counsel’s opportunity to inquire into the circumstances of the challenged identification, and to bring out the facts, are all relevant to the consideration of overall due process fairness to the accused.
In post-Wade trials the situation may be different since the alerted court and prosecutor could take steps to confine the trial to unquestionable identification testimony. But when a trial, as well as the identification, has taken place prior to Wade and Stovall, the fact that some of the testimony would raise problems, if independently considered, should not be required to undo the trial, provided that essential fairness is pointed to by iden*1252tification of defendant by evidence that is substantial and reasonable, and that the defense had an adequate opportunity to probe the relevant factors.
I am not certain whether or to what extent the foregoing differs in net effect from the “traditional” “harmless error approach” proposed by the dissent. I suspect any differences in result would reflect not differences of standards so much as differences in judges applying them. But differences in the formulation of standards are sometimes significant in clarifying the role and direction of the trial courts called upon to apply the standards. That leads me to an observation that these matters are properly to be resolved by the trial judge, at least in the first instance, and that appellate resolution marks the rare exception.
I am authorized to say that Judge BURGER joins in this opinion.

. Whether an identification is unnecessarily unreliable for Stovall purposes is a matter to be decided in the first instance by considering the “totality of the circumstances” relevant to the confrontation of witness and the accused. I join whole*1251heartedly in the majority opinion which elaborates at greater length on this question.
If the retroactive due process right condemned all trials at which the court received “tainted” identification testimony, it would then be necessary to focus on the case in terms of the “harmless error” test — including whether there is any basis under the Constitution for relaxing the harmless error approach set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).

. It is important to bear in mind that when we deal with problems of identification evidence in pre-Waáe trials, there is no point in being concerned with undesirable police conduct unless it produces evidence which is likely to result in an injustice or is so egregious that it is unseemly to allow a conviction to stand. Cf. Miller v. Pate, 386 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 785, 17 L.Ed.2d 690 (1967) ; Napue v. Illinois, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217 (1959).
The Constitution has always been concerned with the quality of evidence and other evidentiary matters. We do not allow convictions to stand when there is no reasonable evidence at all. Yet that determination must essentially be made by assessing the record and the testimony. Cf. Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 80 S.Ct. 624, 4 L.Ed.2d 654 (1960).

. See Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 272-274, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967) ; Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 296, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967).

. In Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 385, 88 S.Ct. 967, 972, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), the Court pointed out: “Notwithstanding cross-examination, none of the witnesses displayed any doubt about their respective identifications of Simmons.”

. Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967 (1968).