A View to a Purse Snatching

On March 24, a man entered the waiting room of a medical clinic. Several people were seated in the waiting room. The man spoke to the clinic receptionist and then asked for directions from a clinic assistant. He then grabbed a woman's purse and ran from the waiting room. The victim's brother and a nearby doctor pursued the suspect but could not catch him. Several patients in the waiting room had an unobstructed view of the suspect walking around and talking with people prior to the crime. They also had witnessed the theft of the victim's purse and the suspect's flight. The room was brightly lit with fluorescent bulbs.

Defendant was detained by police shortly after he committed the crime. Defendant was taken in a police car to the scene of the crime for a single-suspect showup identification. The victim and the eyewitnesses from the waiting room all positively identified defendant as the man who had stolen the victim's purse and fled. The showup identification took place only 15 minutes after the commission of the crime.

Defendant was tried and convicted of robbery by sudden snatching. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that the showup identification was impermissibly suggestive and thus violated his right to due process. Defendant argues that the lower court erred in not granting his motion in limine for the exclusion of evidence based upon the showup identification.

According to Georgia law, was the identification procedure impermissibly suggestive?
If so, did the identification procedure create a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification?

Now imagine the suspect was armed with an automatic pistol during the crime and had threatened the patients in the waiting room with the weapon? Fearing for their lives, the patients had not looked at the suspect directly, but instead had taken only furtive glances at the suspect. Thirty minutes after the crime, the victim was shown a photo array of 25 possible suspects, including ne photograph of the defendant taken 3 to 5 years earlier. The victim was certain that none of the photographs identified the robber. However, at a showup identification the day after the robbery, the victim positively identified the defendant as the robber. Was this showup identification impermissibly suggestive? If so, did the identification procedure create a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification? See State v. Frye, 422 S.E.2d 915, 917-18 (Ga.Ct.App. 1992).

Submitted by Greg Newman

Emory University School of Law

Answer

(1) Unnecessarily suggestive ID procedures are violation of due process rights.  The test for whether the ID is unnecessarily suggestive is totality of the circumstances.  The Court in this case held that the one-man showup of the defendant 15 minutes after the crime was not unnecessarily suggestive so as to be conducive to a mistake identification, therefore it was admissible.

(2) Even if the procedure is somewhat suggestive, it will not violate due process if the court finds it to be reliable and unlikely to cause a misidentification. 

See Wright v. State, 475 S.E.2d 670, 672 (Ga.Ct.App. 1996).