Evans v. State
Decision Date | 14 September 1992 |
Docket Number | No. CR,CR |
Citation | 836 S.W.2d 383,310 Ark. 389 |
Parties | Lloyd EVANS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 92-200. |
Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
The Cortinez Law Firm, P.A. by Robert R. Cortinez, Little Rock, for appellant.
Kent G. Holt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
Lloyd Evans, the appellant, was convicted of rape. He was sentenced as an habitual offender to life imprisonment. His contention on appeal is that identification of him by the victim should have been suppressed because it resulted from an unduly suggestive photographic lineup. We affirm the conviction.
On September 6, 1990, between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., the victim was walking from her home in Pine Bluff to her husband's home to collect their child. A man approached her, spoke with her, and then placed a gun at her back and forced her to the track area behind a school, where he raped her. The victim gave a description to the police after she was taken to the hospital that evening. Four days later she identified Lloyd Evans, from a photographic lineup, as her assailant.
Evans moved to suppress the identification testimony. He argued the lineup was unnecessarily suggestive. A suppression hearing was held just prior to trial. The victim and the officer who conducted the lineup both denied there had been any attempt by the police to suggest Evans as the culprit in the lineup procedure. The Court ruled the identification process was proper and permitted the victim to testify that she was immediately able to identify the photograph of Evans as that of her assailant without prompting or suggestions.
Evans' motion stated that the lineup was unnecessarily suggestive because: (1) the facial hair was not similar on all participants in the lineup, (2) the body builds of the participants in the lineup was not similar, (3) the color of the participants in the lineup was not similar, (4) the accused was suggested to the victim as the assailant.
After hearing the testimony from the victim and Officer Roby the Court referred individually to the points made in the motion, discussed them while or after viewing the photographs shown to the victim, and decided none of them had merit.
In addition to the challenges raised and argued in his motion Evans adds a fifth element which he argues tainted the identification procedure. He contends his was the only photograph of a man in a white T-shirt. The other five individuals pictured were dressed in orange jumpsuits. From this fact Evans argues that the victim was led to identify him as her assailant because she had to conclude that he was the only one with opportunity because he was not incarcerated and thus the only one who could have committed the offense.
While Evans' motion did not mention this point, his counsel seemed to allude to it while cross examining the victim and did mention it in closing argument to the jury. We...
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Bishop v. State
...easily observe details of his face. She had no question in her mind concerning her identification of appellant. See Evans v. State, 310 Ark. 389, 836 S.W.2d 383 (1992). Appellant further complains concerning an officer's statement made when the prosecutrix was viewing the photographic lineu......