State v. Grenier
| Decision Date | 10 December 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 1798-E,1798-E |
| Citation | 313 A.2d 661,112 R.I. 498 |
| Parties | STATE v. Pierre Frank GRENIER. x. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
This is an indictment charging the defendant, Pierre Frank Grenier, with robbery. The case was tried to a Superior Court justice sitting with a jury which returned a verdict of guilty as charged. It is before this court on defendant's bill of exceptions to several rulings of the trial justice.
The alleged offense was the robbery of a department store in the city of Woonsocket on the evening of September 10, 1968. Mrs. Denyse Remillard, an employee of the W. T. Grant Company which operates the store, testified that on that date at approximately 8:25 p.m., she saw a man enter her office. He entered the office in a crouching position, armed with a gun, and with a woman's nylon stocking pulled over his head. After ordering her to remain seated at her desk, the robber took an amount of money estimated as from one to two thousand dollars from the store safe and from Mrs. Remillard's desk top. During the commission of the crime, Mr. Richard W. Peckrul, the store manager, entered the office. The armed robber ordered him to sit at another desk. Thereupon, having collected the money from the desk and the safe, the robber left the office. The entire episode consumed no longer than five minutes, and, during this period, the robber remained in a more or less crouching position. After the robber left the premises, Mr. Peckrul telephoned the Woonsocket police to report the robbery and two officers came to the Grant store where both Mrs. Remillard and Mr. Peckrul gave a preliminary statement concerning the robbery.
Immediately thereafter, Mrs. Remillard and Mr. Peckrul proceeded to the Woonsocket police station to make a formal statement. The next day in her office Mrs. Remillard was shown five police photographs, commonly known as 'mug shots', by Woonsocket Police Sergeant Joseph Solano. Four of the mug shots were marked as being from the Woonsocket police department files, and had blank backs. The shot of defendant was marked as a Providence police department photograph, and contained information regarding defendant's physical characteristics on the back of the photograph. Mrs. Remillard identified defendant's photograph as a picture of the robber whom she had observed on the previous day. Mr. Peckrul entered the office as she was completing her identification. He then proceeded to also select the photograph of defendant as that of the robber.
Testimony revealed that at about 2 a.m. on September 12, 1968, both eyewitnesses were requested to go to the Woonsocket police station. At the request of Police Captain Charles J. Dubuque, they stood in a hallway, next to an open door, and listened to voices emanating from the next room. Mrs. Remillard stated that one of the voices was similar to that of the robber. Mr. Peckrul also identified one of the voices as being the voice of the robber. When Mrs. Remillard and Mr. Peckrul entered the room, its three male occupants were silent so that neither eyewitness to the crime knew which of the men had been speaking as they listened outside the door. Two of the three men in the room were police officers, and the third man was defendant Grenier. One of the police officers was known to both eyewitnesses. Both Mrs. Remillard and Mr. Peckrul identified defendant as the robber. They testified that it was later ascertained that the remaining man in the office was also a police officer, although it appeared they had already assumed this to be so.
Trial began on April 15, 1971. Mrs. Remillard was called as the state's first witness, and was a short way into her testimony when the jury was excused. At this point in the testimony Mrs. Remillard had made an in-court identification of defendant, but there had been no testimony regarding any pretrial identification. In the absence of the jury, Mrs. Remillard, Mr. Peckrul, Sergeant Solano and Captain Dubuque were then questioned extensively in regard to the pretrial identifications by the eyewitnesses. At the conclusion of this testimony, the trial justice ruled that the eyewitnesses' in-court identification was admissible into evidence. The jury was recalled, and the state proceeded to present its case. The state introduced testimony concerning the pretrial identifications, namely, viewing of the photographs by the eyewitnesses, the voice identification, and the identification of defendant by the eyewitnesses at the police station. During the testimony of another Woonsocket police officer, Chief Inspector Raymond D. Tempest, the trial justice admitted into evidence, over defendant's objection, the five photographs used in the pretrial identifications. Upon conclusion of the state's case, defendant's motion to strike the in-court identification by the eyewitnesses was denied.
The defense in presentation of its case introduced testimony by a law clerk concerning his purchase of a pair of nylon stockings on the date of the trial. A Providence Police Captain, John J. Power, testified as to the records concerning defendant's physical features. During his testimony it was revealed that said record, as well as defendant's picture used in the first pretrial identification, was made on August 6, 1968, one month prior to the date of the robbery.
Captain Dubuque was recalled by the defense, and testified as to the length of time required to drive from Woonsocket to Pawtucket, where defendant resided at the time of the robbery. Mr. Peckrul, after being recalled by the defense, testified concerning the basis of his identifications. He also stated that the stockings which had been purchased by the defense could well have been as sheer as the one used in the robbery, but that it was a 'stretchie' type, not available in 1968.
Robert E. Yourman of Laurel, Maryland, who was a neighbor of defendant in Pawtucket at the time of the robbery, testified that he, Mrs. Grenier, and defendant had been together in Pawtucket until a short time prior to the time of the robbery, although Mrs. Grenier had departed shortly before he and Grenier separated. At the conclusion of this testimony, defendant's motion to conduct a demonstration involving the stocking was denied by the trial justice.
The state in rebuttal called Captain Dubuque, who again testified as to the time required to drive from defendant's residence in Pawtucket to the scene of the alleged offense. He also testified that defendant's wife had been present in the courtroom during the trial.
During the state's closing argument defendant objected to two comments by the prosecutor. Both of defendant's objections were overruled by the trial justice. After having been charged by the trial justice the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The defendant directs our consideration to five questions which encompass nine exceptions taken by defendant to rulings by the trial justice.
We first consider defendant's contention that the procedures used at the pretrial identifications were so unnecessarily suggestive that they constituted a denial of his rights guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment and are therefore grounds for reversal.
In order to buttress his argument that reversible error has been committed defendant directs our attention to the following 'lineup' cases: Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967); Gilbert v....
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State v. Thornley
...(1967). It is unnecessary for us to consider all the principles in these cases since the rule as espoused by this court in State v. Grenier, R.I. 313 A.2d 661 (1973), and State v. Ragonesi, R.I., 309 A.2d 851 (1973), is dispositive of defendant's argument In Grenier and Ragonesi we held tha......
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State v. Ivy
... ... The defendant cites for authority State v. Grenier, 112 R.I. 498, 313 ... A.2d 661 (1973), where we held that an identification procedure of a defendant made among three persons, one of whom the victim knew to be a police officer, was unfair and violative of the defendant's right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States ... ...