Thursday, April 24, 2014

Tenth Circuit US v. Kamahele 12-4003

Decision here.

   Technically, the one I'm interested in is US v. Kepa Maumau, 12-4007.  But this decision has five different cases lumped into one decision.  Most of it is really boring droning on about RICO, VICAR, jury instructions, prosecutorial misconduct, and other stuff that doesn't really make a lot of difference on the street.  I hate reading cases like this one.

   But buried under all that is a few paragraphs about a photo array.  Kepa Maumau was identified as one of the suspects in a series of robberies after being identified in a photo lineup with six pictures.  Maumau argued that the lineup was unduly suggestive, and both the trial court and the Tenth Circuit found that it was not.  The Tenth Circuit went on to say that even if it had been, reversal would not have been warranted because of the reliability of the victims' identifications of Maumau.

   The two important questions regarding photo lineups are 1- Whether it was unduly suggestive (which is defined by whether or not it creates a substantial likelihood of misidentification), and 2- if the lineup is unduly suggestive, whether or not an identification is still reliable in view of the totality of the circumstances.

   The first question (undue suggestiveness) is where the court addresses things like the number of photographs in the array, the details of the photographs, and the way that the police present the lineup.  Regarding numbers, there's no hard and fast rule (although six is a small enough number to weigh slightly in favor of suggestiveness without being per se unconstitutional).  The manner of presentation is pretty simple: let the witness know that they don't have to make an identification, and don't do anything to direct the witness' attention to the suspect's photograph.  

   The second question is the really interesting one.  Factors that the court considers when determining the reliability of an identification (in spite of the suggestiveness of a lineup) include: the opportunity of the witness to view the suspect during the crime, the witness' level of attention during the crime, the accuracy of the witness' prior description of the suspect, the level of certainty the witness demonstrated when making the identification, and the time lapse between the crime and the identification.  This isn't an exhaustive list... as I understand it, the inherent reliability of some identifications is the reason that we don't need to show a six pack to someone who is identifying a personal acquaintance as a suspect, or why doing a show-up with a suspect apprehended just down the street is permissible.

   Anyway, in this case the identifications were held to be reliable (and the lineup wasn't unduly suggestive anyway).  And all of the other boring crap also worked out in the prosecution's favor.  All convictions affirmed.

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