United States ex rel. Vanterpool v. Cahn

315 F. Supp. 986, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10665
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedAugust 5, 1970
DocketNo. 70-C-927
StatusPublished

This text of 315 F. Supp. 986 (United States ex rel. Vanterpool v. Cahn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States ex rel. Vanterpool v. Cahn, 315 F. Supp. 986, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10665 (E.D.N.Y. 1970).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JUDD, District Judge.

This petition for habeas corpus presents the question of what consequences flow from holding a pretrial lineup without the presence of defendant’s counsel after the decision of United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). Petitioner seeks to be relieved of his sentence on a conviction for harassment and menacing, and to be protected from trial for another related offense of possession of a dangerous weapon.

The Facts

Early on a July afternoon two teenage girls finished their swimming at Jones Beach and walked under the road to Parking Lot 4, to wait for a friend to pick them up. On the parking lot they were accosted by a man of dark complexion, dressed in a bathing suit and a towel. After a few words, he disclosed a gun under his towel, said “this is a stick up” and took one of the girls by the arm and started to pull her toward the bushes that surrounded the parking lot. One car drove into the parking lot and paid no attention but a second car stopped, because the driver sensed something wrong. The man with the gun then walked away, and the driver put the two girls in his car and found a policeman, who made a fruitless search of the area. One of the girls described the culprit as Puerto Rican, and the driver said he was a “Latin type.”

The next afternoon about the same time one of the Long Island State Parkway Police found the defendant sitting on a wooden fence near Parking Lot 4, dressed in slacks, shirt and towel (of a different color). Defendant said he was from Canada and was waiting for a friend. He started to run away when other police arrived, but was apprehended and frisked. In the towel around his waist there was concealed a .177 caliber air-pistol, designed to shoot pellets or beebees.

Defendant was taken to the Jones Beach police station, and permitted to telephone his attorney. The policeman identified himself on the telephone, but did not mention any plans for a lineup. The lawyer said he would be there the next morning for the arraignment. He had to be in Ossining that night, and could not see his client before morning. The policeman denied being told not to do anything detrimental to defendant’s rights, and the trial court apparently accepted his version.

The Lineup

Shortly after the lawyer had talked with the defendant, the police gave him Miranda warnings, and obtained his signature to a waiver of rights. It is not contended that the waiver specifically mentioned waiving the presence of counsel at a lineup.

The two girls were then summoned, identified the gun which had been taken from defendant, and were asked to pick him out from a group of four men. The other three in the lineup were off-duty detectives, of Italian descent and dark complexion, also dressed in slacks and sport shirts, and about defendant’s height. The girls had no difficulty or hesitancy in identifying defendant as their assailant, and expressed no doubts about the matter. Each man was asked to speak his name, but his identification took place before defendant spoke.

[988]*988Defendant is a native of Dominica in the British West Indies. He considers himself Negro, but is not black-skinned. Evelyn McAvinue, the girl whose arm he had taken, said all the men in the lineup had dark complexions, and she thought they looked Puerto Rican. The judge noted for the record that defendant did not look negroid, but “approaching between Spanish and Negro.”

The Trial

The District Court Judge conducted a pretrial hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress any identification by the witnesses who had observed the lineup. Two police officers, Miss McAvinue, the defendant, and his attorney all testified.

The judge heard oral argument and dictated his decision into the record. He held that identification prior to arraignment was important, even in the defendant’s interest, that the lawyer must have known that a lineup was customary, that defendant did not request his lawyer’s presence, and “the police went about as far as could be reasonably expected to accord this man all his constitutional rights.” Finally, he found that Miss McAvinue’s identification was spontaneous and positive, and not the result of any suggestion.

Defendant then waived a jury, and went to trial before the same judge who had conducted the suppression hearing. The two girls identified defendant, and so did Paul McGinnis, the driver who had picked them up. He is a business executive. He testified that he had looked closely at the girl’s assailant, though from forty feet away. He had not seen him again until the day of trial three months later, but he was sure of his identification. He was unshaken by extensive cross-examination.

Defendant relied on an alibi. He and two witnesses testified, but there were inconsistencies between the testimony of the two witnesses, and also between their stories and his own account of the day’s events.

The court again dictated a decision after hearing argument. He found that Mr. McGinnis . was an impressive witness, and confirmed the girls’ spontaneous identification. He found that one alibi witness was unreliable, and that the testimony of the other could be reconciled with defendant having been at Jones Beach at the time of the attack. After considering the fact that defendant was found at the same spot with a gun the next day, he found that defendant was guilty “beyond any doubt.” After seeing "the pre-sentence report, which showed no prior record, the court imposed a sentence of sixty days in jail and a $150 fine.

The charge of possessing a dangerous weapon, on the day after the assault, still awaits trial.

The Scope of the Wade Rule

Defendant was clearly deprived of the right of counsel at the lineup. The practice of inducing a defendant to sign a Miranda waiver after he has talked with counsel is questionable at best. As for a lineup, a man charged with crime does not often realize the importance of having counsel at a pretrial identification. Cf. Schantz v. Eyman, 418 F.2d 11, 14 (9th Cir. 1969). The form that was described here did not constitute an “intelligent waiver” of the right to be represented at the lineup. United States v. Wade, supra, 388 U.S. at 237, 87 S.Ct. at 1937.

Most reported cases since Wade have dealt with lineups which occurred before 1967, and involve only the determination whether confrontation “was so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification that he was denied due process of law.” Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 301-302, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 1972, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967).

The Wade rule was fashioned as an exclusionary rule “to deter law enforcement authorities from exhibiting an accused to witnesses before trial for identification purposes without notice to and in the absence of counsel.” Stovall v. Denno, supra, 388 U.S. at 297, 87 S.Ct. at 1970. However, the court in Stovall recognized that confrontations for iden[989]*989tification “often have been conducted in the absence of counsel with scrupulous fairness and without prejudice to the accused at trial.” (388 U.S. at 299, 87 S.Ct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Chapman v. California
386 U.S. 18 (Supreme Court, 1967)
United States v. Wade
388 U.S. 218 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Gilbert v. California
388 U.S. 263 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Stovall v. Denno
388 U.S. 293 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Harold A. Spriggs v. Jerry v. Wilson
419 F.2d 759 (D.C. Circuit, 1969)
People v. Logan
250 N.E.2d 454 (New York Court of Appeals, 1969)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
315 F. Supp. 986, 1970 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10665, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-ex-rel-vanterpool-v-cahn-nyed-1970.