SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
The sole issue on this appeal, from convictions of robbery1 and simple assault,2 is whether a near-the-scene identification confrontation between a suspect without a lawyer and the victim, within an hour to an hour and a half after commission of the offenses,3 violated the suspect’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel4 or his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law.5 The District Judge, after a hearing, held that no such violation was established, and permitted an in-court identification of the suspect, our appellant, and testimony as to the out-of-court identification at the trial. After careful study of the problem — one residing in a difficult and gray area of the law — we reach the same conclusion, and accordingly affirm appellant’s convictions.
I
The offenses in suit occurred on a Sunday morning between 11:30 o’clock and 12:00 noon as William Cook was returning home from a grocery store.6 Two men approached him from behind; one man put his arm around Cook’s neck, and the other came around in front to face him with a knife. The first, whom Cook later identified as appellant,7 then threw Cook to the ground and the other rifled his pockets, removing approximately three dollars. At this point, a car stopped nearby and an occupant inquired as to whether a robbery was in progress, whereupon the two men fled. Cook then returned home and called the police.
In reporting the robbery, Cook gave full descriptions of both men, including such details as ages, heights, weights and the fact that one wore a blue zippered waist-length jacket and blue trousers. The descriptions were flashed over the police radio network, and about 12:20 p. m. were noted by Officer Willie L. Polk while on duty in the robbery area. Officer Polk recalled that earlier that [1029]*1029day he had seen a man — appellant, as it turned out — matching one of the descriptions. The officer then began a cruise of the area, and shortly thereafter spotted appellant and another man fitting the other description standing among a group only a half-block from the robbery scene. Appellant was wearing a blue jacket and blue trousers, and his physical features approximate those of the man described in the broadcast as having been so attired.
Officer Polk took the two men into custody 8 about 12:45 p. m. and immediately transported them to Cook’s house, a distance of about four blocks. Cook was asked to look at the men, the officer stating that they matched the descriptions Cook had given; aside from this statement, there was no suggestion to Cook that the police suspected either man. Cook came outside, viewed both men, and identified appellant as one of the robbers.9 It was then about 1:00 p. m., no lawyer was present, and the record is fuzzy as to the extent to which appellant may have been advised of a right to counsel.10
It is this confrontation that appellant attacks and, since it occurred after the Supreme Court’s Wade-Gilbert-Stovall pronouncements,11 the principles delineated in those decisions were fully operative.12 Upon a defense motion to suppress, the District Judge conducted a hearing, at which Cook and Officer Polk both testified, and thereafter rejected appellant’s Wade-Gilbert and Stovall approaches.13 This ruling opened the door to Cook’s in-trial identification of appellant as one of the robbers, and testimony by Cook and Officer Polk as to the identification at Cook’s home.
Appellant’s defense rested on his testimony that, while walking along the street, he came upon Cook arising from the ground, a bag of groceries lying nearby. Cook, appellant testified, then said “[y]ou are the one” and admonished appellant to “wait until I get back.” Appellant testified further that he continued to walk on for another half-block to a corner where he stayed until he was arrested, and denied any connection whatever with the robbery. As we have [1030]*1030mentioned, however, the jury thought otherwise and convicted.
II
The Wade-Gilbert-Stovall trilogy articulated constitutional standards governing identification procedures by which the criminally suspect may become the criminally accused. Wade and Gilbert established the suspect’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel at an identification confrontation;14 Stovall established his right to freedom from a confrontation “so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification” as to amount to a deprivation of Fifth Amendment due process of law.15 Nonsatisfaction of these standards bars implicated witnesses from subsequent in-court identifications not flowing from independent sources,16 and from testimonial reference to prior illegal identifications.17
As we have indicated, appellant weaves a thesis for reversal from strands of all of these constitutional doctrines. He was without the benefit of counsel, he points out, when he was identified by Cook at the latter’s home; that identification, he argues, occurred under circumstances so highly suggestive of his complicity in the robbery as to impinge upon due process. Therefore, so the argument runs, Cook’s in-eourt identification, and Cook’s and Officer Polk’s testimony as to Cook’s out-of-court identification, were improperly received at his trial, with the result that his conviction cannot stand. We first take up appellant’s right-to-counsel contention, and then his due process claim.18
In Russell v. United States,19 we sustained, against a Wade-Gilbert argument, an on-the-seene identification confrontation between the victim and a singly-presented suspect transpiring quite shortly after the crime. We noted that “prompt on-the-scene identifications” were not precisely covered by the Wade and Gilbert holdings,20 which involved post-indictment lineups; 21 we observed that in Wade and Gilbert “the [1031]*1031Court was evidently focusing primarily on the routine lineup and show-up procedure employed by the police to obtain evidence for use at trial.” 22 “In these typical cases,” we continued, “where counsel has been retained and time is not a factor, [the Court] could find ‘no substantial countervailing policy considerations * * * against the requirement of the presence of counsel.’ ”23 We found that in the circumstances of the case then before us “there would necessarily be a long delay in summoning appellant’s counsel or a substitute counsel to observe the formal lineup; ” 24 “[s]ueh delay,” we said, “may not only cause the detention of an innocent suspect ; it may also diminish the reliability of any identification obtained, thus defeating a principal purpose of the counsel requirement.” 25 We concluded:
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SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge:
The sole issue on this appeal, from convictions of robbery1 and simple assault,2 is whether a near-the-scene identification confrontation between a suspect without a lawyer and the victim, within an hour to an hour and a half after commission of the offenses,3 violated the suspect’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel4 or his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law.5 The District Judge, after a hearing, held that no such violation was established, and permitted an in-court identification of the suspect, our appellant, and testimony as to the out-of-court identification at the trial. After careful study of the problem — one residing in a difficult and gray area of the law — we reach the same conclusion, and accordingly affirm appellant’s convictions.
I
The offenses in suit occurred on a Sunday morning between 11:30 o’clock and 12:00 noon as William Cook was returning home from a grocery store.6 Two men approached him from behind; one man put his arm around Cook’s neck, and the other came around in front to face him with a knife. The first, whom Cook later identified as appellant,7 then threw Cook to the ground and the other rifled his pockets, removing approximately three dollars. At this point, a car stopped nearby and an occupant inquired as to whether a robbery was in progress, whereupon the two men fled. Cook then returned home and called the police.
In reporting the robbery, Cook gave full descriptions of both men, including such details as ages, heights, weights and the fact that one wore a blue zippered waist-length jacket and blue trousers. The descriptions were flashed over the police radio network, and about 12:20 p. m. were noted by Officer Willie L. Polk while on duty in the robbery area. Officer Polk recalled that earlier that [1029]*1029day he had seen a man — appellant, as it turned out — matching one of the descriptions. The officer then began a cruise of the area, and shortly thereafter spotted appellant and another man fitting the other description standing among a group only a half-block from the robbery scene. Appellant was wearing a blue jacket and blue trousers, and his physical features approximate those of the man described in the broadcast as having been so attired.
Officer Polk took the two men into custody 8 about 12:45 p. m. and immediately transported them to Cook’s house, a distance of about four blocks. Cook was asked to look at the men, the officer stating that they matched the descriptions Cook had given; aside from this statement, there was no suggestion to Cook that the police suspected either man. Cook came outside, viewed both men, and identified appellant as one of the robbers.9 It was then about 1:00 p. m., no lawyer was present, and the record is fuzzy as to the extent to which appellant may have been advised of a right to counsel.10
It is this confrontation that appellant attacks and, since it occurred after the Supreme Court’s Wade-Gilbert-Stovall pronouncements,11 the principles delineated in those decisions were fully operative.12 Upon a defense motion to suppress, the District Judge conducted a hearing, at which Cook and Officer Polk both testified, and thereafter rejected appellant’s Wade-Gilbert and Stovall approaches.13 This ruling opened the door to Cook’s in-trial identification of appellant as one of the robbers, and testimony by Cook and Officer Polk as to the identification at Cook’s home.
Appellant’s defense rested on his testimony that, while walking along the street, he came upon Cook arising from the ground, a bag of groceries lying nearby. Cook, appellant testified, then said “[y]ou are the one” and admonished appellant to “wait until I get back.” Appellant testified further that he continued to walk on for another half-block to a corner where he stayed until he was arrested, and denied any connection whatever with the robbery. As we have [1030]*1030mentioned, however, the jury thought otherwise and convicted.
II
The Wade-Gilbert-Stovall trilogy articulated constitutional standards governing identification procedures by which the criminally suspect may become the criminally accused. Wade and Gilbert established the suspect’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel at an identification confrontation;14 Stovall established his right to freedom from a confrontation “so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification” as to amount to a deprivation of Fifth Amendment due process of law.15 Nonsatisfaction of these standards bars implicated witnesses from subsequent in-court identifications not flowing from independent sources,16 and from testimonial reference to prior illegal identifications.17
As we have indicated, appellant weaves a thesis for reversal from strands of all of these constitutional doctrines. He was without the benefit of counsel, he points out, when he was identified by Cook at the latter’s home; that identification, he argues, occurred under circumstances so highly suggestive of his complicity in the robbery as to impinge upon due process. Therefore, so the argument runs, Cook’s in-eourt identification, and Cook’s and Officer Polk’s testimony as to Cook’s out-of-court identification, were improperly received at his trial, with the result that his conviction cannot stand. We first take up appellant’s right-to-counsel contention, and then his due process claim.18
In Russell v. United States,19 we sustained, against a Wade-Gilbert argument, an on-the-seene identification confrontation between the victim and a singly-presented suspect transpiring quite shortly after the crime. We noted that “prompt on-the-scene identifications” were not precisely covered by the Wade and Gilbert holdings,20 which involved post-indictment lineups; 21 we observed that in Wade and Gilbert “the [1031]*1031Court was evidently focusing primarily on the routine lineup and show-up procedure employed by the police to obtain evidence for use at trial.” 22 “In these typical cases,” we continued, “where counsel has been retained and time is not a factor, [the Court] could find ‘no substantial countervailing policy considerations * * * against the requirement of the presence of counsel.’ ”23 We found that in the circumstances of the case then before us “there would necessarily be a long delay in summoning appellant’s counsel or a substitute counsel to observe the formal lineup; ” 24 “[s]ueh delay,” we said, “may not only cause the detention of an innocent suspect ; it may also diminish the reliability of any identification obtained, thus defeating a principal purpose of the counsel requirement.” 25 We concluded:
Balancing all the doubts left by the mysteries of human perception and recognition, it appears that prompt confrontations in circumstances like those of this ease will “if anything promote fairness, by assuring reliability * * This probability, together with the desirability of expeditious release of innocent suspects, presents “substantial countervailing policy considerations,” which we are reluctant to assume the Supreme Court would reject. We therefore conclude, with some hesitation, that Wade does not require exclusion of [the appellant’s] identification.26
Ill
On the right-to-counsel issue, Russell differs essentially from the instant case only with respect to the length of the time interval between the offenses and the identification confrontation.27 In Russell, it was a matter of about 30 minutes;28 here it was a period of an hour to an hour and á half.29 The problem at hand, then, is to determine which ambit — Wade’s or Russell’s — the present case falls within. The Government urges us to define the scope of the Russell holding in terms of a “reasonableness” test involving the circumstances [1032]*1032surrounding such a confrontation.30 Appellant, on the other hand, would have us confine Russell within the narrowest limits of the situation there presented'— a confrontation “within minutes” after the observed offense.31
While a fixed time limit would reduce, for police and courts alike, uncertainties in Russell implementations,32 the legal test must surely be more flexible. As Russell instructs, the redeeming virtue in on- or near-the-scene identifications is their freshness — as a factor promoting their reliability, and consequently their fairness.33 Time is, of course, of the essence, for the trustworthiness of an eyewitness identification, dependent as it is on sharpness of memory, is apt to lessen with the passage of time.34 But the pace of memory-dimming may be reflected by other circumstances — those which may either strengthen or weaken an ensuing identification 35 — and those circumstances vary from case to case. We can no more say that every identification within any particular fixed period is assuredly reliable than we can say that every identification beyond that period is assuredly unreliable. We reject, then, a purely artificial time approach to confrontations of the type under review, and favor instead a standard which gives other factors bearing upon the fidelity of the identification their just due.36
We have recognized three distinct interests toward which prompt on- or near-the-scene identifications may wholesomely contribute. The first, and dominant, is that identifications occurring shortly after the observations made when the crime was committed possess a greater likelihood of accuracy because of their freshness, while a postponed identification could be detrimental to that end. This consideration contributed significantly to our holdings in Russell [1033]*1033and other similar cases,37 as it has to a number of ^re-Wade confrontations in which a degree of suggestivity was questioned on due process grounds.38 Time may warp the memory,39 and there is no way of telling at what point or to what extent this disintegration takes place in particular humans.40 Delay incidental to the arrangement of a formal lineup in the presence of counsel thus becomes important in assessing whether an earlier identification procedure, though without counsel, is constitutionally justified.41
Once the time factor, in the surrounding circumstances, enhances the trustworthiness of a near-the-scene identification, two other interests also come to the fore. These are the combined needs for fast and effective police action in apprehending criminals, and the avoidance of unnecessary inconvenience and embarrassment to innocent citizens incidental thereto.42 By such confrontations, a suspect not identified as the perpetrator of the crime is exonerated forthwith without being hauled to a. police facility for a lineup, and possibly without suffering an arrest. Simultaneously, the police can quickly ascertain the necessity for any further investigation and search for the real culprit. Such confrontations, then, serve also to protect the innocent, and to pro[1034]*1034mote efficiency in the deployment of limited police resources.43
We do not, however, in summarizing the interplay of the two last-mentioned interests, intimate that apart from the freshness of an identification they are constitutional justifications for confrontations which omit the procedure prescribed by Wade. The foundation of our Russell decision was an early confrontation aiding fairness by improving the reliability of the identification; the “expeditious release of innocent suspects” then became an additional reason for dispensing with the necessity for counsel upon an identification quite independently deemed reliable because it was fresh.44 We find the elements of the Russell foundation present in the case at bar, and thereon we rest our decision.45 It is in the process of doing so that other interests to which we have given recognition are also subserved.
IV
The one circumstance differing here from Russell, we repeat, is the time lapse — about 30 minutes, as against an hour to an hour and a half — between the identifying witness’ initial confrontation with his assailants and the confrontation at which appellant was identified as one of them. In all other material respects the cases are alike; only the longer time interval here could upset the result which Russell held to be proper. In our view, that single difference is not enough to produce a different outcome.
The truth of the matter is that we have not limited Russell to confrontations occurring within moments of the criminal episode. Rather, we have imparted to the time factor a modest degree of elasticity, thus accommodating the flux of ever-changing surrounding circumstances. In both Wade- and Sto-vall-type situations, we have recognized that confrontations delayed somewhat more than momentarily may still meet constitutional requirements although some amount of delay was inevitable.46 In some instances, of both types, where the duration of the delay approximated [1035]*1035that here, we have nonetheless found the confrontation justified.47 As we look to the events transpiring in the instant case, we find the justification satisfying.
The assault and robbery were committed in broad daylight. The episode, by Cook’s estimate, occupied a space of about two minutes. Cook was able to observe his assailants while the robbery was in progress and upon his release at its conclusion. Cook’s encounter with the one later identified as appellant was not the first; just minutes before, on his way to the grocery store, Cook had seen him standing on a street corner.48 Cook went home right away and reported the affair to the police. The report— made no later than about 12:00 noon— does not seem to have been unduly delayed, despite the uncertainty in the record as to exactly when it and the reported incidents respectively occurred.49 Cook, very properly, took time to supply descriptions of his assailants in substantial detail.50 The descriptions were disseminated by police radio, as they had to be; this must have been done promptly, since Officer Polk heard the broadcast at 12:20 p. m. Then, recalling his observation earlier that day of a man in the offense area fitting one of the descriptions — appellant, as it later turned out51 — the officer dutifully embarked upon a search for him. Appellant and a man fitting the second description were sighted, and the officer had to radio for help and await its arrival. When, at about 1:45, the men were taken into custody, the officer faced a choice be[1036]*1036tween taking them to Cook’s house for a viewing or transporting them to a police facility for a lineup. The officer elected the first alternative, and followed through on it immediately.
We recount these unfolding events because for us they reveal a societally indispensable endeavor — -to capture two criminals at large — which from beginning to end occupied but a relatively brief time span. They reveal, too, efforts in that direction — by police and victim alike — pressed with as much diligence as can reasonably be expected, followed quickly by an effort to ascertain the accuracy of the results.52 The victim’s prompt report to the police set in motion an equally prompt search for his assailants, an activity continuing aggressively and without pause until two suspects were apprehended. With the chances of intercepting two robbers on foot dwindling rapidly as time passed, the need to know whether the suspects were the culprits was urgent. Delay for a formal lineup with counsel, under the circumstances here, could easily have meant that unless the search was already successful, its resumption was doomed to almost certain failure.
We realize, of course, that the interest in reliable-because-fresh identifications was not assisted in this case quite as well as it was by the 30-minutes-later identification confrontation in Russell. Yet we cannot believe that so small a time difference — a half hour to an hour —could seriously depreciate Cook’s at-home identification in terms of freshness, the value of which Russell extolled.53 And certainly the public interest in efficient police operations with a minimum of incommodity to the citizenry54 weighs just as heavily here as it has in other cases.55
In our view, the confrontation we now scrutinize served the end that any ensuing identification might be much fresher, any innocent arrestee might be released much sooner, and any further police work might resume much faster than would have been possible if the delay incidental to arrangement of an orthodox lineup had been suffered. In this case, then, no less than in Russell, we are presented with “ ‘substantial countervailing policy considerations’ which we are reluctant to assume the Supreme Court would reject.” 56 In the circumstances here, as in Russell, we are led to the conclusion that Cook’s near-the-seene identification of appellant should stand.
We realize that “[a]t some point the nexus of time and place between offense and identification must become too attenuated to outweigh the admitted dangers of presenting suspects [1037]*1037singly to witnesses,”57 We recognize the importance of confining identification presentations — even those manageable freshly after criminal episodes— “to situations in which possible doubts as to identification need[ ] to be resolved promptly.” 58 We agree — and reaffirm — that such presentations must be restricted to situations where “the interest in speedy identification * * * justifies the failure to arrange a formal lineup * * * [and thus] the failure to provide the suspect with counsel.” 59 Our holding is limited strictly to such situations and we caution, as we have before, that “absent such need the conventional line-up is the appropriate procedure.”60 In the case at bar, we find ample justification for the questioned confrontation in the combination of the necessity appearing, the relatively short time interval, and the potentially reliable identification. We also note that, after this case arose, the Metropolitan Police Department put into operation a regulation restricting on- and near-the-seene identification confrontations to suspects arrested within 60 minutes after the alleged offense and in close proximity to the scene.61 We see in this regulation a careful and commendable administrative effort to balance the freshness of such a confrontation against its inherent suggestiveness, and to balance both factors against the need to pick up the trail while fresh if the suspect is not the offender.62 We see no need for interposing at this time any more rigid time standard by judicial declaration. Our conclusion is fortified by the consideration that the absence of counsel, though lawful, is one of the circumstances that may be taken into account by a court, along with the ability of the witness to observe the offender in the first instance, in determining the fairness of the confrontation. The court’s review of the situation must consider whether there was a sufficient likelihood that the witness was making an identification that was his own, rather than one thrust upon him, and that in turn requires a consideration of the likelihood that the witness was capable of making an accurate identification, or whether the identification was inherently unreliable.63
V
There remains only appellant’s contention that the District Judge erred in ruling that the confrontation at Cook’s house did not impinge on due process. We think, however, that the ruling must be sustained. While we have no doubt that some suggestiveness unavoidably inheres in every showup64 the factors already discussed65 countervail to insulate the confrontation against the ignominy of a constitutional viola[1038]*1038tion.66 And by a process of balancing the competing considerations, we have consistently held that “absent special elements of unfairness,” 67 a showup close in time and place to the crime does not encroach on due process.68
We find nothing in the circumstances to remove the case at bar from the purview of our previous holdings on this score. Both Cook and Officer Polk testified that no suggestion was made to Cook that appellant was believed to be one of the two robbers, but only that Cook was asked to view two men because they seemed to fit the descriptions Cook had furnished the police. It is doubtful, too, that the suggestivity inherent in the situation went beyond that present in other showups since Cook demonstrated a power of discrimination by identifying only one of the two men.69 Moreover, the District Judge heard the witnesses, weighed the testimony, and by a fully correct application of the governing legal principles concluded that the test of a due process violation was not met. Giving the judge’s conclusion the deference70 due on a record providing ample support, we find no error in his due process ruling.
The judgment of conviction appealed from is accordingly
Affirmed.