Court Opinion

ID: 9458305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:48:30.079274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:42.958490
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Chief Judge,
concurring with whom MAX ROSENN, Circuit Judge, joins.
I agree that this ease does not involve a violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Undoubtedly, desirable police practice dictates that an individual in custody be represented by counsel when his picture is included in a pre-trial photographic display. I am not prepared to say, however, that such a desirable practice takes on constitutional proportions.
Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), established that the Fifth Amendment rights of a defendant subject to an in-court identification by a witness who had selected the defendant’s picture from a photographic array were adequately protected by “a course of cross-examination at trial which exposes to the jury the . . . potential for error.” In reaching this decision the Court realized that “[e]ven if the police . follow the most correct photographic identification procedures there is a some danger that the witness may make an incorrect identification.” Id. at 383, 88 S.Ct. at 971. Also, it understood that the potential for prejudice accruing to an accused as a result of such a misidentification was magnified because, after selecting a particular photograph, an identification witness “is apt to retain in his memory the image of the photograph rather than of the person actually seen, [thereby] reducing the trustworthiness of subsequent . courtroom identification.” Id. Both of these factors are inherent in photographic identification procedures, whether or not counsel is present. Yet, the Supreme Court felt that due process required only a case by case determination of the admissibility of an in-court identification which had been preceded by an uncoun-selled photographic identification.
The same considerations involved in the Simmons rule in a Fifth Amendment context apply to the Sixth Amendment challenge raised in this case. It is true that a defendant and his counsel are not privy to what happened at the pre-trial photographic identification. But, much if not all of what occurred can be reconstructed by appropriate discovery and through examination by defense counsel. Thus, it would appear, as was true in this case, that a defendant can obtain production of the photographs employed in the photographic identification. Compare Del.Super. Ct.Crim.R. 16(b) with F.R.Crim.P. 16(b); cf. Simmons v. United States, supra at 388; but see Jones v. State, 10 Md.App. 420, 270 A.2d 827, 830 (1971). With these photographs produced the defense then is left to concentrate largely on the manner in which they were presented to the identification witness. These circumstances do not seem so impervious to effective cross-examination to mandate automatic exclusion of the witness’ in-court identification (absent independent basis) as the only acceptable solution. See Simmons v. United States, supra 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967.
Indeed, if a trial court should find that a particular pretrial photographic identification violated Simmons it would be required to exclude such identification testimony unless the prosecution established according to the requisite standard that the in-court identification had a basis independent of the prior improper photographic identification. See, e. g., United States v. Sutherland, 428 F.2d 1152, 1155 (5th Cir. 1970); United States v. King, 321 F.Supp. 614, 615-616 (W.D.Tex.1970); United States v. *749Washington, 292 F.Supp. 284 (D.D.C.1968). And, even if not excluded the identification evidence might be seriously impugned. See Simmons v. United States, supra 390 U.S. at 384, 88 S.Ct. 967. Thus, although a per se exclusionary rule under the Sixth Amendment is not adopted, I think that a defendant’s basic rights in this area are adequately secured by the safeguards enunciated in Simmons.