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Show-Up Identification Procedure Unduly Suggestive

Although deemed harmless error, the Second Department determined the show-up identification of the defendant was unduly suggestive.  The defendant had already been arrested when he was pulled to a standing position in front of the victim for identification (for the second time).  At that point there were no “exigent circumstances” to justify the procedure used:

While the defendant bears the ultimate burden of proving that a showup procedure is unduly suggestive and subject to suppression, “the People have the initial burden of going forward to establish the reasonableness of the police conduct and the lack of any undue suggestiveness in a pretrial identification procedure” … . “The People’s burden consists of two elements. First, the People must demonstrate that the showup was reasonable under the circumstances. Proof that the showup was conducted in close geographic and temporal proximity to the crime will generally satisfy this element of the People’s burden'” … . However, “[t]he People also have the burden of producing some evidence relating to the showup itself, in order to demonstrate that the procedure was not unduly suggestive” … .

The People established that the showup “was conducted in close geographic and temporal proximity to the crime” … . However, they failed to demonstrate that the procedure was not unduly suggestive. The fact that a defendant is handcuffed and in the presence of police officers, standing alone, does not render a showup unduly suggestive …, even where “the victim had been told that the police had a suspect in custody” … . Here, however, the complainant was given two opportunities to identify the same man as the perpetrator. The second time, police officers pulled the defendant into a standing position and escorted him to where the complainant was standing. At that juncture, the defendant was under arrest and Officer Fallace acknowledged that “[t]here was no rush at that point.” Therefore, there were no exigent circumstances justifying the procedures employed. The above-described circumstances, when “viewed cumulatively,” establish that “the showup identification was unduly suggestive” … . Further, there was no hearing or finding on the question of whether the complainant’s in-court identification had an independent source … . People v Ward, 2014 NY Slip Op 02809, 2nd Dept 4-23-14

 

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