Reynolds v. Lockhart
| Citation | 470 F.2d 161 |
| Decision Date | 19 December 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 72-1504.,72-1504. |
| Parties | Roy C. REYNOLDS, Appellant, v. A. L. LOCKHART, Superintendent of Cummins Unit of the Arkansas State Penitentiary, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) |
Roy C. Reynolds, pro se.
Ray Thornton, Atty. Gen., Little Rock, Ark., on brief for appellees.
Before MEHAFFY, BRIGHT and STEPHENSON, Circuit Judges.
On March 7, 1969 appellant was convicted in state court of kidnapping and first degree rape and was sentenced to serve two concurrent 99 year terms. No appeal was taken from the conviction, but a state post-conviction action was pursued without success. Reynolds v. State, 248 Ark. 153, 450 S.W.2d 555 (1970). In 1972 appellant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, alleging that the conduct of both the pretrial line-up and the in-court identification was so impermissibly suggestive that it violated the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. The district court, with The Honorable G. Thomas Eisele presiding, denied relief and appellant now brings this appeal. For the reasons stated below we affirm the judgment of the district court.
The facts surrounding the crime and appellant's conviction are largely undisputed. On May 28, 1968 a thirteen year old girl and her nine year old brother were abducted at gunpoint while walking home from school with some friends. The two children were driven to a farm field where the girl was raped. The abductor then apparently drove the children to another isolated field where the girl was reportedly raped again. The abductor then released the children in the field and allegedly told them to wait there while he went for cigarettes. Shortly thereafter the children were found by the police who had been informed of the abduction by the victims' friends. Still later in the same day appellant was arrested while driving a stolen automobile that fit the description given by the children. The following day appellant was identified in a line-up by the two children who had been abducted. Appellant was not represented by counsel at this line-up. A police examination of the automobile in which appellant was arrested revealed fingerprints of the young girl who had been abducted. At his trial appellant was identified by the young girl as well as by two of her friends. There was no reference whatsoever to the line-up identification during the course of appellant's trial. Appellant's defense in the trial was temporary insanity. The jury found appellant guilty and he was sentenced to two concurrent 99 year terms.
Appellant's first argument attacks the conduct of the pretrial line-up as "so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparably mistaken identification" as to be a denial of due process. Foster v. California, 394 U.S. 440, 442, 89 S.Ct. 1127, 1128, 22 L.Ed.2d 402 (1969); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). This attack on the suggestiveness of the line-up ignores, as it must, the absence of counsel question for the simple reason that no use was made of the line-up identification at the trial. Compare, United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 189 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967). Instead, the appellant urges that the conduct of the pretrial line-up was so suggestive that it implanted an image of appellant in the prosecutrix's mind that led inevitably to a mistaken in-court identification.
The simple answer to appellant's argument is that there was nothing at all suggestive in the conduct of the line-up. After a...
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U.S. v. Lewis, 76-1238
...States v. Kopacsi, 488 F.2d 900 (5th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 987, 94 S.Ct. 2393, 40 L.Ed.2d 765 (1974); Reynolds v. Lockhart, 470 F.2d 161, 162 (8th Cir. 1972). Even if the lineup was to a degree suggestive because appellant's receding hairline was the common denominator and most......
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United States v. Hollister
...were African-American males of approximately the same age, complexion,weight, and physical characteristics"); Reynolds v. Lockhart, 470 F.2d 161, 162 (8th Cir. 1972) (holding that a lineup was not impermissibly suggestive where "there were seven men of varying description in the line-up, at......
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Reynolds v. Lockhart, 74-1157.
...of counsel and without notice that the lineup was to be conducted, this Court has previously decided this issue in Reynolds v. Lockhart, 470 F.2d 161 (8th Cir. 1972). With regard to his argument that he incriminated himself without having been given the required warnings, there appears to b......
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State v. Stephens, 57063
...In that situation it is immaterial, even if appellant was entitled to counsel at the lineup, that none was present. Reynolds v. Lockhart, 470 F.2d 161 (8th Cir. 1972). Appellant's challenge to the incourt identification is without merit. As noted, the presence of counsel was not required at......