[DOWNLOAD] "People State New York v. Gregory Harris" by Supreme Court of New York # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: People State New York v. Gregory Harris
- Author : Supreme Court of New York
- Release Date : January 17, 1980
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
Appeal by defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County, rendered August 2, 1978, convicting him of two counts of robbery in the first degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial of defendants motion to suppress the identification testimony of one of the two complaining witnesses. Judgment reversed, on the law, defendants motion to suppress the identification testimony of Jerry Cruz granted, and new trial ordered. Among the more compelling reasons for reversal in the instant case, it is our belief that Criminal Term erred in refusing to suppress the identification testimony of one of the two complaining witnesses, 15-year-old Jerry Cruz. At the Wade hearing, Cruz testified on direct that he never saw the perpetrator during the commission of the instant crime and that he was unable to describe what his assailant had been wearing. Instead, he testified that when he and the other complaining witness, his 16-year-old brother, Fred, went to police headquarters, it was the latter who furnished the description of the perpetrator, and implied rather plainly that he (Jerry) was able to identify the defendant solely because his brother had been able to do so. In this regard, it is important to note the photographic identification procedure employed by the police in this case was impermissibly suggestive as both of the complaining witnesses were permitted to view the photographs together. Thus, at the Wade hearing, Jerry Cruz testified that it was his brother, Fred, who had turned the knob of the Mira-Quik machine in order to rotate the pictures, and it was Fred rather than himself who had stopped the machine when he (Fred) observed a photograph of the defendant. Jerry, it would appear, was unable to identify the photograph and merely went along with his brothers selection, which then became the basis for his (Jerrys) in-court identification of the defendant. This is precisely the danger of joint showups which we condemned in People v Leite (52 A.D.2d 895) because "The possibility, and even the likelihood, that an identification by one of the viewers would influence or cause an identification by the others was patent." Accordingly, in the absence of overwhelming independent evidence of guilt (see infra), it is our belief that on this basis alone the judgment must be reversed and a new trial ordered. There was, [74 A.D.2d 879 Page 880]