Court Opinion

ID: 9457301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:18:08.673341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:17.790857
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Senior District Judge
(dissenting):
In the course of an attempted holdup, an accountant employed by Hechinger Company was shot in the chest a half inch or less from the heart, and his assailant fled.
Three days after the shooting, the victim selected a photograph of his assailant from 12 to 14 representative black and white photographs shown to him by a police officer. The photograph selected was of appellant.1 On the following day more than 50 color slides were thrown on the wall of the victim’s hospital room and he identified a color slide of appellant as the person by whom he was shot. On the basis of this photographic identification, appellant was arrested.
Prior to trial government counsel informed the court and defense counsel that the victim of the shooting had been taken to a hospital where he selected appellant’s picture first from a number of black and white photographs and later from approximately 50 color shots. The prosecutor also disclosed that on the date of appellant’s preliminary hearing, the victim saw appellant sitting among 30 to 40 assignment court people in the Court of General Sessions, told a detective located in the hallway where appellant was seated in the courtroom, and later accompanied the detective into the courtroom to make an identification.2
The trial judge conducted a hearing out of the presence of the jury relative to the pretrial photographic identification and concluded that this identification was “positive and wholesome from the outset” and that the victim had “the power to identify this man [appellant], notwithstanding anything that happened in the General Sessions Courtroom.” 3
At the trial the victim made an in-court identification of appellant as the man by whom he was shot, the court ruling that such in-court identification *1244rested on a basis independent of the confrontation and identification in the General Sessions courtroom, the independent source being the witness’ identification of appellant’s photographs prior to trial.
The victim testified that he had been with the military police for seven years and in such connection had been taught to observe faces. He further testified that at the time of the attempted holdup, under three fluorescent lights, he was grabbed by the shirt, and that at arm’s length he observed appellant until appellant, realizing that the stares of the victim were upon him, pulled something over his face. The victim described appellant as having “one eye that drooped slightly,” 4 a mustache, and a small caliber gun, either .25 or .22, with a pearl handle. (Tr. pp. 13-15.)
In the government’s case in chief the victim was not permitted to testify as to his confrontation and identification of appellant at the Court of General Sessions on the day of the preliminary hearing, the court holding that evidence of such confrontation and identification would be violative of defendant’s right under the Sixth Amendment in that defendant’s counsel was not present at that time. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967).
However, the fact of the confrontation in the General Sessions courtroom was brought out initially by the defense itself when the defendant took the witness stand to interpose an alibi defense.
After the defendant testified that he had not ever seen the complaining witness before he saw “him in this [District] court” (Tr. 112), he was pressed by his attorney as to when he first saw the complaining witness, and whether the complaining witness was seen at any time prior to the preliminary hearing. The defendant then related that before such hearing began in the Court of General Sessions he and his mother were standing in the courtroom as was the complaining witness and a police detective, and that this was the first time in his life he had seen the complaining witness, the second time being at the trial. The implication of this testimony was that the defendant and his mother were alone in the Court of General Sessions courtroom when the police detective entered with the complaining witness and prompted an identification of the defendant by the complaining witness. Under these circumstances, the trial judge ruled that since the defendant had initially gone into the matter of the confrontation and identification which took place immediately preceding the preliminary hearing, the government, by rebuttal testimony, might fill in the gaps and give its version of that confrontation.
This ruling of the trial court is consistent with the decision in United States v. Clark, D.C., 294 F.Supp. 44 (1968), affirmed sub north. Clemons v. United States, 133 U.S.App.D.C. 27, 408 F.2d 1230 (1968) (en banc), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 964, 89 S.Ct. 1318, 22 L.Ed.2d 567 (1969). There the trial court said:
“ * * * [I] f for tactical reasons, defense counsel chooses to place before the jury an allegedly prejudicial confrontation, the Government should be permitted to defend the testimony of its witnesses by seeking to convince the panel of the unsuggestive nature of the challenged confrontation.” 294 F.Supp. 44, 52-53.
Since in the case at bar I do not believe there was error in the admission of the rebuttal testimony, I respectfully dissent.

. This photograph was received as Government’s Exhibit No. 1 at the hearing before the trial judge (out of the presence of the jury) on the photographic identification. (Tr. 51-53.) On its face the photograph carries the number 202796.

. The attorney for defendant had requested that the victim be present at the court house on the day of the preliminary hearing.

. Transcript, p. 108.

. The defendant did indeed have such an eye according to the trial judge. Transcript of Dec. 13, 1968, p. 5.