Court Opinion

ID: 9458285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:47:10.791723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:42.002612
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
Although I concur in the affirmance of King’s conviction, I emphasize that it is unnecessary to rest our decision in whole or in part on our recent en banc ruling in United States v. Brown, No. 24,452, 149 U.S.App.D.C. -, 461 F.2d 134 (1971) (opinion filed March 1, 1972.) I was unable to join in Brown because I share Judge Wright’s view that “pretrial photographic identifications — even where the photograph involved is of the lineup itself — are, like lineups, a critical stage of the prosecution at which the accused is constitutionally entitled to the assistance of counsel.” 461 F.2d at 151 (Wright, J., dissenting). Even though the photograph at issue here was of a lineup, the crucial difference from Brown is that here counsel was present when the photograph was displayed to the witnesses.
Given the presence of counsel (and absent any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel), King cannot assert a violation of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 218, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). There remains, however, the possibility of an objection under Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), on the theory that *157the identification — -notwithstanding the presence of counsel — was so unduly suggestive as to deny the defendant due process.
In support of his Stovall claim King points to the delay of fourteen months between his arrest and the identification at issue here, and he argues that his defense was prejudiced because the photograph was displayed to the witnesses immediately before trial. The majority finds no error, and indicates that “[tjiming, a matter which normally goes to the weight of the evidence and the credibility of the witness, not the admissibility of an identification, is within the jury's province. * * * The jury was fully aware of the nature and timing of the photographic identification to assist it in weighing the witnesses’ testimony. The jury has spoken. We must abide by its decision.” 461 F.2d at 155.
In my view, the majority’s answer misses the point of King’s contention. Where witnesses are able to identify a suspect from a lineup photograph fourteen months after the commission of the crime, the jury is obviously going to place great weight on the identification and the defendant will be hard pressed to argue that the passage of time has dimmed the memory of the witnesses. What appellant fears — and it seems to me a very realistic source of concern — is that the process of identification is likely to be most suggestive when the government has postponed it until the eve of trial. At that point the prosecution has the greatest incentive to influence, consciously or unconsciously, the witnesses’ conclusions. See United States v. Brown, supra, 149 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 461 F.2d at 147 (Bazelon, C. J., dissenting). And where an identification is made after a fourteen month delay, it may be possible to infer from its apparent implausibility that it must have been predicated on some suggestivity so subtle that defense counsel could not detect it. These are clearly questions for the court, not the jury.
In some cases the inference drawn from the improbability of the identification could lend weight to other indicia of suggestivity, thereby requiring exclusion of the identification under the principle of Stovall. But since the record in this case reveals no other evidence of sugges-tivity and since the improbability of the identification is not so great as to compel an inference of impropriety, I would conclude — as a matter of law — that Sto-vall does not bar the admission of this identification at trial.
There remains, however, a further problem — one to which Stovall was not addressed. Dissenting in Brown, I pointed out that we have systematically shut our eyes to all of the shortcomings and trouble spots of the identification process. 149 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 461 F.2d at 145, n 1. Data already available (to which I referred in Brown) suggests that identifications based on a brief glimpse of the assailant in the confused atmosphere of a crime may frequently be unreliable. And the dangers of unreliability seem significantly increased where the witness and the suspect are of different races. Id. Yet we have tried to sweep this cluster of very troublesome problems under the rug by insisting — as in the majority opinion here — that the jury is capable of handling the difficulties that may arise. That insistence is not supported by reference to information or reasoning. And we do not even take the trouble to provide the jury with meaningful information about the pitfalls of the identification process. (The vacuous and unhelpful jury instruction which is occasionally offered is surely no exception.1) *158As a result, our confidence in the jury’s innate ability to handle the problem does not even reflect good common sense.
Clearly, much more is at stake here than a “technical” violation of law. The question, after all, is not whether the constable stumbled, but whether the defendant is actually guilty. I do not see how we can turn over to the jury this critical question without even trying to acquaint it with the risks involved or the information now available that could illuminate its inquiry. Compare United States v. Bennett, 148 U.S.App.D.C. -, 460 F.2d 872 (1972); Washington v. United States, 129 U.S.App.D.C. 29, 390 F.2d 444 (1967).
In any case, the entire problem could have been avoided, as the majority points out, if the suspect had been displayed to all of the witnesses at a prompt lineup. I am convinced that the government has no defensible interest in postponing an identification for as much as fourteen months. Indeed, in explaining the situation to the judge at the outset of trial, the prosecutor stated:
Your Honor, in this case, very frankly, the work of the police department, perhaps in part because of the dereliction on the part of the police department, but perhaps also in part because of the very overloaded schedule of the police department, has resulted in three people that say now they think they can identify [King], * * * They have never attended a lineup in which he was present.
Transcript at 8-9. The photograph of a lineup held fourteen months earlier was then displayed to the three witnesses and two of them were able to identify King. There is no excuse for compelling a court to resolve this problem by wrestling with inferences; this case makes plain the need for a prophylactic rule barring the introduction of needlessly postponed identifications.

. See Junior Bar Section of the Bar Assoc, of the District of Columbia, Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia, No. 126 (1966):
Mistaken Identity
The burden is on the Government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, not only that the offense was committed as alleged in the indictment, but also that the defendant is the person who *158committed it. You must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the accuracy of the identification of the defendant before you may convict him. If the circumstances of the identification are not convincing beyond a reasonable doubt, you must find the defendant not guilty.