Summary
The Supreme Court of Indiana affirmed Richard Swigeart’s convictions for attempted robbery, battery, and criminal confinement. The court held that the trial court properly excluded potentially misleading telephoto photographs and that the officer had an independent basis for identifying Swigeart in court despite a suggestive pretrial photographic identification.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding photographs taken with a wide-angle telephoto lens as potentially misleading and cumulative.
- Whether allowing Officer McCann to identify Swigeart in court violated due process because McCann's pretrial identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive.
Holdings
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding photographs taken with a wide-angle telephoto lens because the photographs could have presented a magnified and misleading depiction of the officer's view and were nearly identical to other admitted photographs.
- Although Officer McCann's pretrial identification procedure was suggestive, admitting his in-court identification did not violate due process because the totality of the circumstances clearly and convincingly established an independent basis for the in-court identification.
Key quotations
“The law approves of the use of photographs to prove the existence and nature of relevant physical objects and scenes so long as they are true and accurate.” (543)
“The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires suppression of testimony concerning a pre-trial identification when the procedure employed is impermissibly suggestive.” (544)
“A photographic array is impermissibly suggestive if it raises a substantial likelihood of misidentification given the totality of the circumstances.” (544)
“Nevertheless, a witness who participates in an improper pretrial identification procedure may still identify a defendant in court if the totality of the circumstances shows clearly and convincingly that the witness has an independent basis for the in-court identification.” (544)
Factual background
Shortly after midnight on May 31, 1998, Swigeart and his son attacked Cheryl Graggs outside a liquor store during an attempted robbery. Swigeart used a BB gun to threaten and strike Graggs, while his son used a stun gun; the two men beat and began restraining her before fleeing when a car approached. Police officer Mark McCann later saw a man near the crime scene and, the next day, identified Swigeart from a photograph after seeing Swigeart's photograph on a detective's desk rather than in a standard photographic array. At trial, the court excluded two photographs taken with a wide-angle telephoto lens and allowed McCann to make an in-court identification.
Procedural history
Swigeart was convicted in the trial court of attempted robbery, battery, and criminal confinement and pleaded guilty to being a habitual offender. The trial court imposed concurrent sentences of 50 years for attempted robbery, eight years for battery, and 20 years for criminal confinement, with the robbery sentence enhanced by the habitual-offender adjudication. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed.