Also known as: in court identification · courtroom identification
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A witness's testimony identifying the defendant as the perpetrator during trial proceedings. Courts admit the identification when it rests on an independent source that purges any taint from a prior unconstitutional pretrial procedure. Reliability is assessed under the totality of the circumstances by weighing the witness's opportunity to view the perpetrator, degree of attention, accuracy of any prior description, level of certainty at confrontation, and time between the crime and the confrontation.
Irene Ingalls stood three feet from an unmasked robber in a well-lit bank and stared at his face for nearly a minute while handing over cash. She later gave a detailed description that matched the defendant. At trial she identified him in court. The court admitted the testimony after finding her opportunity to view and high attention supplied an independent source.
Igor Ito was indicted for theft. Agents then arranged a lineup at the hospital without notifying his lawyer and misled counsel about the timing. The nurse identified Ito at the lineup. The court suppressed the lineup identification but admitted the in-court identification because it rested on an independent source.
On September 21, 1964, a federally insured bank in Eustace, Texas, was robbed when a man wearing a small strip of tape on each side of his face entered the bank, pointed a pistol at the female cashier and the vice president, and forced them to fill a pillowcase with the bank's money before driving away with an accomplice waiting in a stolen car outside. On March 23, 1965, an indictment was returned charging respondent Billy Joe Wade with conspiring to rob the bank and with the robbery itself. Wade was arrested on April 2, 1965, and counsel was appointed to represent him on April 26, 1965. Fifteen days later, on May 11, 1965, an FBI agent arranged a lineup at the local county courthouse without notifying Wade's counsel; Wade stood with five or six other prisoners, each wearing strips of tape on his face, and each was directed to say words such as "put the money in the bag." Both bank employees identified Wade at the lineup. At Wade's subsequent trial in federal district court, the two employees identified him in the courtroom on direct examination; on cross-examination they testified about their prior lineup identifications, and an FBI agent who observed the lineup also testified. Wade's counsel moved to strike the courtroom identifications on Fifth and Sixth Amendment grounds, but the motion was denied and Wade was convicted. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the conviction, holding that the lineup violated Wade's Sixth Amendment rights, and ordered a new trial at which the in-court identification evidence would be excluded. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseIlana Isaacs glimpsed an intruder for several seconds under monitor light in a dark server room. She gave an accurate description immediately after the event. Three weeks later she identified the defendant from a single photo and again in court. The court admitted the in-court identification because her trained attention and accurate description established an independent source.
On December 24, 1968, ten-year-old Pamela Powers disappeared from a YMCA building in Des Moines, Iowa, where she had accompanied her parents to watch an athletic contest. Williams was seen leaving the YMCA carrying a large bundle wrapped in a blanket. A fourteen-year-old boy who helped open his car door reported seeing two skinny white legs inside it. Williams' car was found the next day 160 miles east in Davenport, Iowa. Items of the child's clothing along with an army blanket were recovered at a rest stop on Interstate 80 near Grinnell between Des Moines and Davenport. A warrant issued for Williams' arrest. On December 26 the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation organized a search with two hundred volunteers divided into teams that began twenty-one miles east of Grinnell and moved westward through Poweshiek County into Jasper County. Searchers checked all roads, ditches, culverts, abandoned farm buildings, and other places where a small child's body could be hidden. The search area was marked off in grids on highway maps. Williams surrendered to police in Davenport and was arraigned. After his attorneys arranged for no questioning during transport, two Des Moines detectives took him into custody for the return drive. During the trip Detective Leaming spoke to Williams about predicted snow and the parents' right to a Christian burial. Williams then directed the officers to the child's shoes, the blanket, and ultimately the body itself. The body lay next to a culvert in a ditch beside a gravel road in Polk County. It was roughly two and one-half miles from where one search team had stopped when the search was suspended at 3 p.m. Williams was indicted for first-degree murder. At his first trial the evidence of the body was admitted over objection. He was convicted. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court reversed in Brewer v. Williams on the ground that the statements were obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. At the second trial in 1977 the prosecution introduced evidence of the condition of the body, articles and photographs of clothing, and autopsy results without offering Williams' statements or showing that he had directed police to the body. The trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the body would have been discovered within a short time in essentially the same condition by the continuing search. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. On federal habeas corpus the District Court denied relief after an independent review. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseIndia Inoue was shown the defendant alone in her hospital room shortly after an assault. She identified him at the show-up and again in court. The court allowed the in-court identification after determining her initial observation supplied an independent source despite the suggestive procedure.
On August 23, 1961, Dr. Paul Behrendt was stabbed to death in the kitchen of his home in Garden City, Long Island. His wife, also a physician, followed him to the kitchen and jumped at the assailant, who knocked her to the floor and stabbed her eleven times. Police recovered a shirt from the kitchen floor containing keys in a pocket that they traced to petitioner, and they arrested him on the afternoon of August 24. Mrs. Behrendt was hospitalized for major surgery to save her life. The following day, August 25, police without affording petitioner time to retain counsel brought him to her hospital room around noon, handcuffed to one of five officers accompanied by two members of the district attorney's staff. Petitioner was the only Negro in the room. An officer asked Mrs. Behrendt whether he "was the man" and directed petitioner to repeat a few words for voice identification, after which she identified him from her hospital bed. At trial Mrs. Behrendt and the officers testified to her hospital-room identification, and she also made an in-court identification of petitioner. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction without opinion. Petitioner sought federal habeas corpus relief in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, claiming among other grounds that admission of the identification testimony violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court dismissed the petition. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit initially reversed after reaching the identification issue, but the court sitting en banc vacated the panel decision and affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and consolidated the case for argument with United States v. Wade and Gilbert v. California.
View caseIsaac Irving testified at trial that he had identified the defendant in a prior photo array. Defense counsel sought to question him about possible bias arising from an earlier faulty identification. The court permitted the inquiry because the jury was entitled to assess the weight of the in-court identification.
On February 16, 1970, the Polar Bar in Anchorage was burglarized and its safe containing well over a thousand dollars in cash and checks was removed from the premises. Later that afternoon the safe was discovered pried open near the home of Jess Straight and his family. Richard Green, Straight’s stepson, told investigating troopers that at about noon he had seen and spoken with two Negro men standing beside a late-model metallic blue Chevrolet sedan near where the safe was later found. The next day Green was brought to the police station and identified petitioner’s photograph from six photographs of adult Negro males after examining them for thirty seconds to a minute. Petitioner was arrested on February 18. On February 19 Green picked petitioner out of a lineup of seven Negro males. At trial, paint chips found in the trunk of petitioner’s rented blue Chevrolet could have originated from the surface of the stolen safe. The trunk contained particles identified as safe insulation characteristic of that found in Mosler safes. Richard Green was a crucial prosecution witness who testified that while on an errand he confronted two men standing beside a late-model metallic blue Chevrolet parked near his family’s house, spoke with the man at the rear who asked if Green lived nearby, and later saw that man holding something like a crowbar. Green identified petitioner at trial as the man with the crowbar. At the time of the events and of trial Green was sixteen years old and on probation by order of a juvenile court after having been adjudicated a delinquent for burglarizing two cabins. Before testimony the prosecutor moved for and obtained a protective order preventing any reference to Green’s juvenile record during cross-examination. Defense counsel stated he would use the record only to show that Green was on probation when he identified petitioner and might have acted out of fear of probation revocation or undue police pressure. On cross-examination Green denied being upset or concerned that police might suspect him and denied ever having been questioned like that before by law enforcement officers. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed petitioner’s conviction concluding counsel had been able adequately to question Green concerning possible bias. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to the question of whether petitioner was denied his right under the Confrontation Clause to adequately cross-examine Green.
View caseIdina Iverson viewed an unmasked robber at close range for nearly a minute and gave an accurate description. Five days later police conducted a suggestive show-up. She identified the defendant again at trial. The court admitted the testimony because the opportunity to view, attention, and accurate description demonstrated independent reliability.
Jimmy Glover, a full-time undercover state police officer, and Henry Alton, an informant, went to an apartment building in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 5, 1970, for the purpose of purchasing narcotics. Glover and Alton entered the building and walked up to the third floor. Glover knocked at the door of one of the two apartments and a man opened the door about 12 to 18 inches. Glover observed the man for two to three minutes from a distance of two feet. The area was illuminated by natural light from a window in the third floor hallway. Glover asked for two things of narcotics and gave the man $20. The man closed the door. Soon the man returned and gave Glover two glassine bags containing what later proved to be heroin. During this entire transaction, which lasted approximately seven to eight minutes, the man stood within two feet of Glover, and was directly in front of him. At about 7:45 p.m. on May 7, 1970, Detective D'Onofrio and Officer Alton drove to the scene of the crime. D'Onofrio left Alton in the car and returned with a picture of respondent that he had obtained from the Records Division of the Hartford Police Department. The picture was a black and white police mug shot of respondent taken in April 1970. D'Onofrio showed the picture to Glover and asked if he was the man who had sold him the narcotics. Glover said that he was. Glover, when alone, viewed the photograph for the first time upon his return to headquarters on May 7 and identified the person shown as the one from whom he had purchased the narcotics. At the trial in January 1971, Glover testified that there was no doubt that the person shown in the picture was the same person who had sold him the narcotics. He also made a positive in-court identification of respondent. No objection was made by respondent to either the out-of-court or the in-court identification. The jury found respondent guilty of the offenses of possession and sale of heroin. He was sentenced to terms of not less than six nor more than nine years on each count, the terms to run concurrently. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed the convictions. Fourteen months later, respondent filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. The District Court dismissed respondent's petition. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, with instructions to issue the writ unless the State gave notice of a desire to retry respondent and the new trial occurred within a reasonable time to be fixed by the District Judge. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseThe identification is admissible if the prosecution shows it rests on an independent source. Courts weigh the witness's opportunity to view the perpetrator, degree of attention, accuracy of the prior description, level of certainty, and time between the crime and confrontation.
Supporting sources
No. The in-court identification is not excluded merely because the defendant's presence resulted from an unlawful detention. The witness may still testify if the identification rests on an independent source.
Supporting sources
The lineup identification must be suppressed. The court may still admit an in-court identification if the prosecution establishes an independent source by clear and convincing evidence.
Supporting sources
Suggestiveness alone does not require exclusion. The court examines the totality of circumstances and admits the testimony when reliability factors show the identification rests on the witness's original observation rather than the suggestive procedure.
Supporting sources