Court Opinion

ID: 9532393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:20:59.045407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:45.261017
License: Public Domain

*550Hennessey, J.
(concurring) I concur with the main opinion in its conclusion that the defendant’s appeal here is groundless. Indeed this appeal is almost frivolous, as viewed in the light of the careful and complete findings of the judge.
I concur also with the main opinion’s conclusion that almost all of the cases which have presented identification issues to this court have brought before us no serious appellate question. We cannot properly be asked to revise a judge’s subsidiary findings of fact, where they are warranted by the evidence, or to review the weight of the evidence related to the findings. In particular, it *551is inappropriate to ask us to reverse a judge’s findings involving credibility, since he saw the witnesses and we did not.
Nevertheless, it is important to add that the ultimate findings and rulings of a judge may give rise to a meaningful appeal, even in a case where his subsidiary findings are beyond practical challenge. This is true because the ultimate conclusions of a judge on identification issues may be of constitutional proportions. This court must, where justice requires, substitute its judgment for that of a trial judge at the final stage. Not every combination of subsidiary findings may be said to meet constitutional standards. The mere recital of appropriate phrases denoting constitutional acceptability may serve only to obscure error in admitting the evidence.
Many pre-trial identification procedures involve some measure of suggestiveness. Frequently this is unavoidable. Probably some invalid identification methods, even more than illegal interrogation or illegal search and seizure, tend to create evidence of guilt where none existed before. It is vital that a judge’s findings and rulings generated by consideration of the principles of the Wade, Stovall and Simmons cases should not become pro forma exercises.1

 In the instant case the ultimate conclusions of the judge, which are fully supported by his complete subsidiary findings, provide examples of the care and thoroughness which must be devoted to these issues.