{"id":2120,"date":"2019-11-19T05:53:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T10:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/?p=2120"},"modified":"2019-11-19T05:53:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T10:53:10","slug":"massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the trial court\u2019s decision to allow two witnesses\u2019 identification of a robbery suspect as admissible evidence despite the lack of protocol and questions surrounding the identifications\u2019 reliability. \u00a0The SJC alternated the procedures going forward requiring an instruction prior to the identification as in Line up identifications. The case adopting this new rule is Commonwealth v. Christian German decided November 13, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The case involved a robbery that occurred as a restaurant owner and three employees were leaving the restaurant late at night. As the women exited the restaurant, one of them got in the front seat of a waiting taxi. The other two employees waited as the owner locked the door. A man approached the three women standing outside of the restaurant, demanding their belongings. While one of the women threw her belongings on the ground, the owner ran around the corner to her vehicle to call 911. The robber then followed the other two women across the street, continuing to demand their property. Men on a nearby rooftop yelled at the robber, and the robber fired a gun in their direction and then left. When police arrived, two of the women had left in the taxi, while the owner and one employee remained to speak to police. After searching the area, officers found the suspect and detained him. One officer told the owner and employee that officers had detained a man, although they did not know if he was the robber, and that they needed witnesses to indicate whether or not he was the robber. While the officer wanted to transport the women one at a time to see the detained suspect, the women insisted that they would not go unless they stayed together and if assured that the suspect would not be able to see them.\u00a0 The officer acquiesced and drove the two women to where the man was detained. Without any prompting, upon the officer pointing the police cruiser\u2019s headlights at the suspect, both women simultaneously stated that the suspect was the robber and that they were 100% certain.<\/p>\n<p>At trial, defense counsel argued that the women\u2019s identification was improper where the women identified the man while sitting in a police cruiser together, not separate, and where the police officer did not provide adequate instructions prior to eliciting the \u201cshowup\u201d identification. Defense counsel also argued that they should be allowed to introduce expert testimony that the witnesses\u2019 degree of certainty of the suspect\u2019s identity was questionable.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the trial court\u2019s decision to allow two witnesses\u2019 identification of a robbery suspect as admissible evidence despite the lack of protocol and questions surrounding the identifications\u2019 reliability. \u00a0The SJC alternated the procedures going forward requiring an instruction prior to the identification as in Line up identifications. The case adopting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-important-sjc-decisions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; November 19, 2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the trial court\u2019s decision to allow two witnesses\u2019 identification of a robbery suspect as admissible &#8212; November 19, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal &#8212; 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Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; November 19, 2019","twitter_description":"The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the trial court\u2019s decision to allow two witnesses\u2019 identification of a robbery suspect as admissible &#8212; November 19, 2019","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael DelSignore","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/"},"author":{"name":"Michael DelSignore","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0bc58f94b3abb11fcd52cf8961c0a6e"},"headline":"Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal","datePublished":"2019-11-19T10:53:10+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/"},"wordCount":739,"articleSection":["Important SJC Decisions"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/","url":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/massachusetts-sjc-adopts-new-procedure-for-show-up-identification-procedures-in-robbery-appeal\/","name":"Massachusetts SJC adopts new procedure for show up identification procedures in Robbery appeal &#8212; 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