State v. Mustacchio

271 A.2d 582, 57 N.J. 265, 1970 N.J. LEXIS 211
Supreme Court of New Jersey·Decided December 7, 1970·Published·Cited by 14 cases

Opinions

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Jacobs, J.

The Appellate Division, with one judge dissenting, affirmed the defendant Mustacchio’s armed robbery conviction. 109 N. J. Super. 257 (1970). He appealed to this Court as of right under R. 2:2-l (a) (2). A codefendant, Anthony D’Agostino, was acquitted by the jury and is not now before us.

On April 4, 1967, two men entered David Goffman’s pharmacy and committed an armed robbery. One of the men had a shotgun and the other kept his right hand in his pocket, leaving the impression that he also was armed. In addition to Goffman, a young man named William Bell was in the pharmacy’s phone booth and witnessed the crime. While the man with the shotgun covered Goffman, the other man emptied the cash register and then accompanied Goff-man to the rear of the store where he emptied a metal box containing cash. He then cut a telephone wire and left with his partner. The police were called and were given descriptions of the two holdup men. Goffman gave a description of the man who emptied the cash register and the [269]*269metal box, later identified as Mustacchio, but Bell, at that point, said he was unable to give a description though he would later look at some mug shots. Both Bell and Goffman gave descriptions of the man with the shotgun whom they later identified as D’Agostino.

On April 5, 1967, the day following the robbery, Goffman was shown a packet of photographs. He identified the defendant Mustacchio as the man who had taken the money from the register and the box. Bell was also shown the photographs, independently of the showing to Goffman, and while he picked Mustacchio as looking very much like one of the robbers, he wanted to withhold positive identification until he saw him in person. On April 7, 1967 there was a lineup at police headquarters of five men including Mustacchio. Goffman immediately identified Mustacchio as the robber who took the money. Thereafter Bell independently viewed the lineup and identified Mustacchio as the robber who had accompanied Goffman to the rear of his pharmacy. At the trial, both Goffman and Bell gave firm and positive identifications of Mustacchio as one of the two men who committed the armed robbery.

The primary point advanced by Mustacchio in support of his appeal is that the pretrial identifications violated his constitutional rights. He stresses that he had no counsel at the lineup and he relies heavily on United States v. Wade., 388 U. S. 218, 87 S. Ct. 1926, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1149 (1967). See also Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, 87 S. Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1178 (1967). There the Supreme Court held that a postindictment lineup without notice to the accused’s appointed counsel was illegal, that the admission of a later in-court identification was erroneous unless it had a sufficient untainted independent origin, and that if the in-court identification had no such origin its admission was cause for reversal unless shown to have been harmless. Here Mustacchio’s lineup occurred while the investigation was still under way prior to indictment and differing views have been expressed as to the applicability of [270]*270Wade to such preindictment situations. Compare People v. Palmer, 41 Ill. 2d 571, 244 N. E. 2d 173 (1969) with People v. Fowler, 1 Cal. 3d 335, 82 Cal. Rptr. 363, 461 P. 2d 643 (1969); Joyner v. State, 7 Md. App. 692, 257 A. 2d 444 (Ct. Sp. App. 1969); Hayes v. State, 46 Wis. 2d 93, 175 N. W. 2d 625 (1970); Commonwealth v. Whiting, 439 Pa. 205, 266 A. 2d 738, cert. denied, 400 U. S. 919, 91 S. Ct. 173, 27 L. Ed. 2d 159 (1970). See State v. Sinclair, et al., 49 N. J. 525, 545 fn. 1 (1967); State v. Matlack, 49 N. J. 491, 499 in. 1, cert. denied, 389 U. S. 1009, 88 S. Ct. 572, 19 L. Ed. 2d 606 (1967). State v. Moore, 111 N. J. Super. 528, 532 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 57 N. J. 210, 271 A. 2d 5 (1970); State v. Edge, 111 N. J. Super. 182, 187 (App. Div. 1970), appeal pending in this Court, September Term 1970; State v. Thomas, 107 N. J. Super. 128, 134 (App. Div. 1969); Notes, 36 U. Chi. L. Rev. 830, 835 (1969); 47 Neb. L. Rev. 740, 747 (1968).

We need not pursue the foregoing inquiry since the lineup here admittedly took place before Wade was decided on June 12, 1967. In Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1199 (1967) the Supreme Court held that the requirement of counsel at a lineup, as mandated by Wade, would not be applied retroactively to lineups conducted before the opinion in Wade was handed down. Mustacchio’s counsel suggests that even though we are not obliged by any decision of the Supreme Court to apply Wade to the case at hand we should do so on our own. Wade imposed a requirement which was foreign to the New Jersey precedents and our courts have consistently declined to apply it to pre-Wade lineups (State v. Sinclair, 57 N. J. 56, 67 fn. 1 (1970); State v. Sinclair, et al., supra, 49 N. J. 525; State v. Matlack, supra, 49 N. J. 491); we find nothing in Mustacchio’s case which would fairly call for an exceptional approach. Nor do we find any basis for his suggestion that, even apart from Wade, he was entitled to counsel at the lineup under the holdings in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 [271]*271(1966) and Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, 84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977 (1964). Those cases dealt with custodial interrogation, particularly the admissibility of incriminating statements made during such interrogation, which is not at all our concern here. Cf. State v. King, 44 N. J. 346, 356 — 358 (1965); United States v. Wade, supra, 388 U. S. at 221-224, 87 S. Ct. 1926, 18 L. Ed. 2d at 1154-1155.

The defendant also contends that he was denied due process in the pretrial identifications and cites Simmons v. United States, 390 U. S. 377, 88 S. Ct. 967, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1247 (1968) and Foster v. California, 394 U. S. 440, 89 S. Ct. 1127, 22 L. Ed. 2d 402 (1969) which, in turn, applied the principles enunciated in Stovall v. Denno, supra, 388 U. S. 293, 87 S. Ct. 1967, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1199. In Stovall the accused was brought handcuffed to a hospital room where he was identified by the victim. The identification occurred before Wade and the question raised by the defendant was whether the confrontation “was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification” as to amount to a denial of due process. In passing on this issue the Court noted that “a claimed violation of due process of law in the conduct of a confrontation depends on the totality of the circumstances surrounding it, * * 388 U. S. at 302, 87 S. Ct. at 1972, 18 L. Ed. 2d at 1206.

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State v. Mustacchio, 271 A.2d 582, 57 N.J. 265, 1970 N.J. LEXIS 211 (N.J. 1970).

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