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I was falsely identified and arrested for a crime by a police officer driving by. What defense do I have?
I was arrested and charged with a purse snatching robbery that I swear I didn’t do. I was walking down the street after dark one night, and three police cars rolled up on me. They used the loudspeaker to tell me to stop; the police told me that I needed to wait there with them because they believed I fit the description of somebody who committed a crime about an hour before. They put my hands behind my back and cuffed me, and made me stand between two of them on the side of the road. Then, another police car drove up and some woman looked at me through the windshield as they drove by, she never turned her head and looked at me through the passenger window. Next thing, the police said I was under arrest. I got bail and have a date for a preliminary hearing. What kind of defense can I make?
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Answers (1)
If you have not already done so, you should retain or ask the court to appoint a qualified criminal defense attorney to represent you. Based on the facts you present, it appears that the government’s case against you is based solely upon the victim’s roadside identification of you as the purse snatcher. You want an experienced criminal defense attorney who is familiar with the state statutes and federal and state cases governing the admissibility of out-of-court identifications and subsequent in-court identifications.
Before the trial begins, you and your attorney can argue that the trial court should not admit the identification because it was unduly suggestive and unnecessary, and thus unreliable, under federal and state law. There are pre-trial motion and hearing procedures designed for such purposes. If you prevail on your motion, most likely the charge(s) against you will be dismissed. If the court decides the identification is admissible and your case proceeds to trial, in most jurisdictions your attorney can also use this evidence of unreliability when s/he cross-examines the victim and police officers.
First, you can attack the reliability and credibility of the victim’s observations of her attacker at the time of the crime. Some of the relevant factors include the opportunity of the victim to view her attacker at the time of the crime, the duration of their contact, the accuracy of the description the suspect that she gave to the responding officers compared to your appearance that night, and the length of time between the crime and the roadside identification.
Second, you can ask the court to exclude the identification because the roadside viewing procedure was improperly suggestive and thus unreliable under federal and state law. The victim was only allowed to view one individual, and you were standing in street clothes next to police cars while being physically restrained by uniformed police officers when she made the identification.
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Posted by Jamilla Moore on 22 Jan 2010