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Commonwealth v. Timothy Smith

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
Aug 1, 1988
403 Mass. 1002 (Mass. 1988)

Opinion

August 1, 1988.

Identification. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress. Evidence, Identification.

David A. Grossbaum, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

Michael P. Hickey for the defendant.


This case presents the same issue as the one we decided today in Commonwealth v. Warren, ante 137 (1988). The defendant was indicted for armed robbery arising out of a hold-up of a McDonald's restaurant in Lynn on March 22, 1986. He moved to suppress all out-of-court and in-court identifications of him by three witnesses to the robbery, on the ground that the identifications were the product of unnecessarily suggestive police procedures. After a hearing, a judge suppressed the identifications made by witnesses Cheryl Brinton and Debra Behen. A single justice of this court granted the Commonwealth leave for an interlocutory appeal. We took the case on our own initiative and now reverse the order of suppression.

As in Commonwealth v. Warren, supra, the judge concluded that the police photographic identification procedures "were fair and not suggestive. The defendant was not denied due process." Nevertheless, he suppressed the identifications made by Brinton and Behen because he found them "unreliable and fraught with danger."

We reverse the suppression order because, as we held in Warren, supra at 139, the due process issue was the sole issue before the judge, and it was resolved in favor of the Commonwealth. The defendant does not challenge that determination. Once the judge concluded that the police photographic identification procedures were valid, the witnesses' reliability was no longer at issue on the motion to suppress. The order suppressing the identification evidence must be reversed.

So ordered.


Summaries of

Commonwealth v. Timothy Smith

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
Aug 1, 1988
403 Mass. 1002 (Mass. 1988)
Case details for

Commonwealth v. Timothy Smith

Case Details

Full title:COMMONWEALTH vs. TIMOTHY SMITH

Court:Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

Date published: Aug 1, 1988

Citations

403 Mass. 1002 (Mass. 1988)
526 N.E.2d 764

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