State v. Mars

• Decision Date: 18 September 1969
• Citation: 107 N.J.Super. 36,256 A.2d 730
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Robert MARS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 36

107 N.J.Super. 36

256 A.2d 730

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Robert MARS, Defendant-Appellant.

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Argued Sept. 8, 1969.

Decided Sept. 18, 1969.

Susan T. Sinins, Asst. Deputy Public Defender, for appellant (Stanley C. Van Ness, Public Defender, attorney).

Richard M. Altman, Asst. Prosecutor, for respondent (Joseph P. Lordi, Essex County Prosecutor, attorney).

Before Judges CONFORD, COLLESTER and KOLOVSKY.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

CONFORD, S.J.A.D.

Defendant was convicted as one of two robbers who held up an A. & P. store in Newark. Three employees of the store identified defendant at trial as one of the culprits. The State also offered evidence of separate pretrial identifications of defendant by two of the employees at the police station about a week after the crime.

On objection by defendant to the testimony as to the out-of-court identifications as being unfairly suggestive, the court conducted three hearings out of the presence of the jury, one with respect to the testimony of each of the two employees, and one as to the confirmatory testimony of Newark Police Detectve Lucarella. After each hearing the court found the circumstances of the out-of-court identification involved not to be unfair, ¹ and the witness then substantially repeated his testimony before the jury.

There was no objection by defendant at trial to the in-court identifications as 'tainted' by the out-of-court confrontations between defendant and the identifying witnesses. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). Consequently no hearing was had or findings made on such an issue at trial.

On this appeal defendant argues both that the preliminary trial court determinations as to fairness of the out-of-court identifications were mistaken and that the in-court identifications were tainted by the circumstances as to the former, I.e., that the identifications in court were not shown by the State to have been based upon observations of the suspect other than those at the out-of-court confrontation. Wade, Supra (388 U.S., at 240, 87 S.Ct. 1926).

We observe, preliminarily, that defendant should be required, in accordance with ordinary practice, to have laid a basis at trial for an appellate argument of taint under Wade, absent plain error, which we do not find here. He did not do so, as already noted.

The argument that the out-of-court identifications were made under impermissibly suggestive circumstances is based, primarily, on the fact that the witnesses were permitted to see the suspect alone in a room at the police station (or with only a white detective, defendant and the culprits being Negro). The witness was not observable by the subject. Defendant also stresses that the detective told each of the identifying witnesses before the identification that he 'thought he might have the man,' or words to that effect.

We consider that the criterion laid down by the United States Supreme Court for invalidating unfairness of use of photographs in out-of-court identifications, in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 384, 88 S.Ct. 967, 971, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968), is fairly applicable to invalidating unfairness, generally, in out-of-court identification procedures. This is: 'if the * * * identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.' See also State v. Matlack, 49 N.J. 491, 231 A.2d 369 (1967); Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967), both stressing the need for consideration of the totality of the surrounding circumstances.

Judged by these criteria, we find no basis for disturbing the trial judge's finding of validity of the out-of-court identification procedures here employed. While the circumstances relied on by defendant tend toward the possibility of...