COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED September 3, 2008 David R. Schanker Clerk of Court of Appeals |
|
NOTICE |
|
|
This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
|
Appeal No. |
|
|||
STATE OF WISCONSIN |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
|||
|
DISTRICT I |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
State of Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Jason R. Dodd, Defendant-Appellant. |
||||
|
|
|||
APPEAL
from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for
Before Curley, P.J., Fine, J., and Daniel L. LaRocque, Reserve Judge.
¶1 PER CURIAM. Jason R. Dodd appeals from a judgment of conviction for armed robbery, and from a post-remand order confirming the denial of his suppression motion applying State v. Dubose, 2005 WI 126, 285 Wis. 2d 143, 699 N.W.2d 582. The issue is whether the showup identification conducted prior to Dubose would have nevertheless been valid pursuant to Dubose’s exigent circumstances exception. We conclude that the showup identification was justified under the totality of the circumstances pursuant to the exigent circumstances exception in Dubose. Therefore, we affirm.
¶2 We reiterate the facts of this case from our previous opinion.
On
August 25, 2002, at approximately 9:35 p.m., a pizza restaurant located at
The vehicle Arvan was in circled around the block and [he] observed the two men again. The vehicle came within ten-to-fifteen feet of the men dressed in black. Arvan provided descriptions of the two men to the police. The police asked Arvan to wait in the parking lot of the pizza restaurant.
Meanwhile, the police had arrested Dodd about four blocks from the robbery at about 9:40 or 9:45 p.m. He was wearing the same type of black clothing that witnesses had described the robbers wearing. The police brought Dodd back to the pizza restaurant’s parking lot where a showup identification procedure was conducted at about 11:02 p.m. Arvan identified Dodd as one of the robbers.
State v. Dodd, No. 2005AP492, unpublished slip op., ¶¶2-4 (WI App Apr. 4, 2006).
¶3 Before trial, Dodd moved to suppress the showup
identification, which the trial court denied.
After Dodd had been found guilty by a jury, sentenced, and was pursuing
his direct appeal, the Wisconsin Supreme Court announced new procedures for the
admissibility of showup identifications in Dubose, which we agreed should apply
to Dodd’s case. See Dodd, No. 2002AP492,
unpublished slip op., ¶¶8-9. Dubose
held that show-up identifications are inherently suggestive and
inadmissible unless, under the totality of the circumstances, the showup
procedure was “necessary,” such as when the police lacked probable cause to
arrest, or exigent circumstances prevented a lineup or a photo array. See Dubose, 285
¶4 The trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing at which Milwaukee Police Lieutenant Detective Alfonso Morales testified. Morales was the detective who interviewed Arvan at the scene. Following Morales’s testimony and counsels’ arguments, the trial court reviewed Dubose and ultimately determined that “under the totality of the circumstances the decision that this [showup identification] was necessary due to exigent circumstances is supported by the record and the evidence.” Dodd appeals from the post-remand order.
¶5 The issue at the evidentiary hearing was whether “the showup identification was justified by exigent circumstances.” Dodd, No. 2002AP492, unpublished slip op., ¶12. Exigent circumstances are defined as:
(1) An arrest made in “hot pursuit,”
(2) a threat to safety of a suspect or others,
(3) a risk that evidence would be destroyed, and
(4) a likelihood that the suspect would flee.
State v. Smith, 131
¶6 At the remand hearing, Morales testified that Arvan and the
two other recruiters he was with were witnesses who had observed the scene and
the aftermath of the robbery. All three
were military recruiters from
I mean, to hold a witness – this incident occurred approximately 9:35 in the evening. I had responded to help out on witness interviews at 10:30. They’re already – you have cooperative witnesses that are there over an hour. The line-up [presumably Morales meant the showup] wasn’t executed till 11:00. It was – I mean it’s a big inconvenience when you have cooperative witnesses standing around. Furthermore, holding on to a witness for multiple hours to conduct a line-up at the jail, that would not have been practical.
During re-cross-examination, Morales testified that he could not have conducted a line-up identification within a couple of hours, although he could have conducted a line-up within a day. He also explained that “[t]hese people, this witness as well as others would have been out of the city by then.”
¶7 The trial court recalled the significant testimony in its
oral decision. “[Arvan] was an active
military duty recruiter,” who was in
¶8 The trial court was mindful that Arvan was “a disinterested witness” who “was not under the stress … of the incident.” Arvan “simply stepped forward and gave his observations objectively to the Police Department and they acted upon that information while he was available.”
¶9 The trial court focused on the third definition of exigent circumstances, namely, “the risk that evidence would be destroyed,” and concluded that the police acted reasonably “under the pressure of the circumstances that existed at that time, they needed to act and … make a record of this identification while it could be made, while it was available to them.” The trial court was also mindful that the police department was investigating this incident prior to Dubose. Nevertheless, the trial court concluded that the police had complied with Dubose while conducting this investigation and identification. The trial court determined that nothing indicated that due process was violated, or that the identification was unreliable. The trial court concluded “that under the totality of the circumstances the decision that this [the showup identification] was necessary due to exigent circumstances is supported by the record and the evidence.”
¶10 Had Morales not sought a showup identification, he risked the
loss of identifying the suspect. Arvan
was in the military and was leaving the area the next morning, and Morales
testified that he could not have constructed a line-up within a couple of
hours. We independently conclude that the totality of the circumstances
justified a showup identification because the exigent circumstances of Arvan’s
immediate but highly limited availability to identify the suspect was likely to
be lost absent a showup identification.
Despite the fact that Dubose had not been decided at the
time of this showup identification, this identification nevertheless complied
with Dubose. See Dubose, 285
By the Court.—Judgment and order affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5. (2005-06).