citing, inter alia, Kalamazoo v. Crawford, 154 Mich. 58, 117 N.W. 572 (1908)
How later courts described this case
- citing, inter alia, Kalamazoo v. Crawford, 154 Mich. 58, 117 N.W. 572 (1908)
- listing reasons for the weakness of eyewitness testimony
- “The clear rule in Michigan is that a majority of the Court must agree on a ground for decision in order to make that binding precedent for future cases.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Overruled in part, on other grounds by People v. Hickman, 470 Mich. 602 (2004)
389 Mich. 155 , 186– 87, 205 N.W.2d 461, 476 (1973), overruled in part on other grounds by People v. Hickman, 470 Mich. 602, 611 , 684 N.W.2d 267, 272
Distinguished
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Jackson, 419 Mass. 716 (1995)
The Anderson case is inapplicable to these facts because Anderson was in custody for the crime in which he claims the lineup should have been held.
Distinguished by People v. Ealey, 102 Mich. App. 301 (1980)
We distinguish these circumstances from those in Anderson, supra, where the victim was critically injured and there was doubt whether she would survive long enough to make a corporeal lineup possible.
The opinion
T. E. Brennan, J.
(concurring). We granted leave in this casé to review the validity of the procedures of photographic identification employed by the police.
My Brother’s opinion concludes:
"Because of this evidence of the victim’s knowledge before the suggestion took place viewed in combination with her previous acquaintance with defendant, we are satisfied that her in-court identification was accurate in *221 spite of the employment of grossly suggestive procedures calculated (albeit unintentionally) to prompt an identification of whatever Indian was pictured.”
Despite careful study, I can see no difference between that conclusion and the conclusion reached by the learned judge of the Court of Appeals:
"An examination of the record in the present case discloses that while the procedures followed in the photographic display were suggestive, they were not impermissibly so in light of complainant’s prior opportunities to view defendant.”
This, then, is the rule of law in the case, both in the Court of Appeals and in this Court.
Where the victim was acquainted with her assailant, and described him to the police, and was in critical condition in the hospital, it was not error to permit an in-court identification of the defendant to be made, despite evidence that the defendant was the only Indian among six persons whose photographs were shown to the victim at the hospital.
The balance of my Brother’s opinion, though scholarly and exhaustive, neither adds nor detracts from the rule of law in the case.
If a Court is to avoid burdening the profession with confusing seriatim opinions, it is necessary for the Justices to ingest much unpalatable dicta. Accordingly, I have signed niy Brother’s opinion. But, if our opinions are to be of any value as precedent, they should be limited to the enunciation of those rules of law which are decisional, related to the facts in the case before us, and supportive of the result arrived at.
Levin and M. S. Coleman, JJ., did not sit in this case.