WHITE III v. STATE (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

[1] Robert R. White, III appeals his convictions for Level 4 felony burglary, two counts of Level 6 felony performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor, and Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana. White raises two issues for our review, which we consolidate and restate as the following issue: whether the trial court erred when it admitted identification evidence against White.

[2] We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[3] Around 6:00 a.m. on August 22, 2022, Brittany Martinez stepped outside her house on Walton Street in Lafayette to smoke a cigarette. As she re-entered her house, she saw a man standing over her two minor daughters, who were asleep on a mattress in the living room, with his pants down and “holding himself.” Tr. Vol. 2, p. 47. It was dark in Martinez's home, but she could see that the man was “light-skinned” or Hispanic and wearing a “wife beater” tank-top and tan shorts. Id. at 46-47. She also observed that he had what appeared to be “shorter” hair that might have been “either pushed to the side or slick[ed] back.” Id. at 63. Martinez got close enough to him that she “could almost touch him,” and then he fled out the back door of her house toward Normandy Street. Id. at 48.

[4] Martinez called 9-1-1, and Lafayette Police Department Officer Eduardo Rodriguez responded to her call about fifteen minutes later. At her residence, Martinez described the intruder to Officer Rodriguez. Her description included identifying the tank-top as black in color. Officer Rodriguez then radioed Martinez's description of the intruder to other officers, but in doing so he relayed that the suspect was wearing a white tank-top.

[5] Nearby, Officer Matthew Meeks received Officer Rodriguez's description and asked some passersby if they had seen a man matching that description. One of the passersby reported that she had seen a “Hispanic male wearing a white tank top and tan shorts ․ walking down the middle of the roadway.” Id. at 74. Officer Meeks went to the location reported by the passerby and, shortly thereafter, observed “a Hispanic male ․ with a white tank top and tan shorts riding a small bicycle.” Id.

[6] Officer Meeks detained the man—White—and informed Officer Rodriguez, who then arrived on the scene with other officers. White was wearing a white tank-top, tan shorts with blue vertical and horizontal stripes, and a blue bandana head covering. He also had a short-cut beard and mustache of black hair, and he was carrying a green bag.

[7] Officer Rodriguez contacted Martinez and asked if the intruder she had seen might have been wearing a hat; she said he was not but he might have had something else on his head. Officer Rodriguez asked if the intruder had facial hair; she responded that, if he did, it must have been very light in color. Martinez could not recall if the man's shorts were plain tan or tan with stripes, but she did recall that he had a slender build.

[8] Officer Rodriguez asked Martinez to meet the officers at 18th Street and Normandy Street to let them know if White was the intruder. Officer Meeks added that Martinez needed to be sure as to her identification because “we definitely don't want to lock up the wrong people.” Appellee's Br. at 9 (quoting Def.’s Ex. 7).

[9] Martinez arrived at the scene around 7:05 a.m. She initially parked across the street and was able to view White from there for about forty seconds before officers asked her to move her car. Martinez then moved her car closer to White and, after exiting her vehicle, saw “[t]he man who broke into [her] home.” Tr. Vol. 2, p. 50. When Martinez looked at White, he “put his head down and looked away” from her. Id. at 54. After Martinez confirmed that White was the intruder, Officer Meeks asked her if she was 100% sure, and she said that she was.

[10] The officers arrested White and read him his Miranda rights. White stated that he had an alibi in that he had been at his aunt's house at the same time the intruder had been inside Martinez's house that morning. However, when officers contacted White's aunt, Sandra Figgs, she stated that she had not seen White in the last twenty-four hours and that he had not been at her house the day of the incident. Appellant's App. Vol. 2, p. 25. Officers also searched White's green bag upon arresting him. Inside, they located marijuana.

[11] The State charged White with Level 4 felony burglary, two counts of Level 6 felony performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor, and Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana. White moved to suppress Martinez's identification of him at the scene of his arrest on the ground that the State's procedure was impermissibly suggestive and in violation of his federal due-process rights. The trial court denied White's motion.

[12] After a bench trial, the court found White guilty as charged. The court then entered its judgment of conviction and sentenced White accordingly. This appeal ensued.

Standard of Review

[13] On appeal, White asserts that the admission of the identification evidence against him violated his federal due-process rights.¹ In reviewing a claim of constitutional error, we consider only the evidence most favorable to the trial court's ruling along with any substantial and uncontested other evidence. See Marshall v. State, 117 N.E.3d 1254, 1258 (Ind. 2019). Whether that evidence is sufficient to pass constitutional muster is a question of law that we review de novo. See id.

Discussion and Decision

[14] White contends that the “show-up” identification procedure employed by the officers at the scene of his arrest was unduly suggestive to Martinez. As our Supreme Court has made clear:

The practice of conducting a one-on-one show-up between a suspect and a victim has been widely condemned as being inherently suggestive both by the United States Supreme Court ․ and by this Court ․ Identification evidence gained from such show-ups, however, is not subject to a per se rule of exclusion. Rather, the admissibility of the evidence turns on an evaluation of whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the confrontation procedure was conducted in such a fashion as to lead the witness to make a mistaken identification.

Wethington v. State, 560 N.E.2d 496, 501 (Ind. 1990) (citations and quotation marks omitted). And, as we have summarized:

The Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law requires the suppression of evidence when the procedure used during a pretrial identification is impermissibly suggestive. Harris v. State, 716 N.E.2d 406, 410 (Ind. 1999). In some circumstances, a show-up identification “may be so unnecessarily suggestive and so conducive to irreparable mistake as to constitute a violation of due process.” Hubbell v. State, 754 N.E.2d 884, 892 (Ind. 2001).

We review challenges to show-up identifications by examining the totality of the circumstances surrounding the identification, including (1) the opportunity of the witness to view the offender at the time of the crime; (2) the witness's degree of attention while observing the offender; (3) the accuracy of the witness's prior description of the offender; (4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification; and (5) the length of time between the crime and the identification. Adkins v. State, 703 N.E.2d 182, 186 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998). “ ‘Identifications of a freshly apprehended suspect have been held to be not unnecessarily suggestive despite the suggestive factors unavoidably involved in such confrontations because of the value of the witness's observation of the suspect while the image of the offender is fresh in his mind.’ ” Lyles v. State, 834 N.E.2d 1035, 1044-45 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005) (quoting Lewis v. State, 554 N.E.2d 1133, 1135 (Ind. 1990)).

Rasnick v. State, 2 N.E.3d 17, 23 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied.

[15] White argues that Martinez's show-up identification of him at the scene of his arrest was unreliable for all of the following reasons: Martinez had just woken up, she had only briefly seen the intruder inside her house, it was dark, he was initially turned away from her, and she was in shock; upon seeing Martinez, the intruder nearly immediately fled the scene; Martinez identified the intruder as having slicked-back hair, but White was wearing a blue bandana head covering; she identified the intruder as wearing tan shorts, while White's shorts had vertical and horizontal blue lines on them; Martinez stated that the intruder had been wearing a black tank-top, while White was wearing a white one; Martinez did not initially identify any facial hair on the intruder and later stated that, if he had facial hair, it must have been light-colored, while White had a short-cut black beard and mustache; and, upon initially arriving at the scene, Martinez looked at White for approximately forty seconds without making any identification. White also argues that Martinez's description better matches another person who was arrested for similar offenses around the same time and place.

[16] The Due Process Clause does not demand perfection in a show-up identification. Rather, reliability under the totality of the circumstances is the essential test. See id. And, here, those circumstances viewed most favorably to the trial court's decision support the court's conclusion that the show-up procedure was unlikely to result in Martinez's mistaken identification of White.

[17] In particular, Martinez stated that she was able to get close enough to the intruder in her house to nearly touch him before he fled, and she also looked him in the eyes before he fled. While the lighting may not have been ideal, it was good enough for her to see his skin tone, his clothing, and at least some general features. Martinez called 9-1-1 within minutes of the intruder fleeing; Officer Rodriguez met with her at her house approximately fifteen minutes after that, and she provided Officer Rodriguez with a description consistent with her description in her 9-1-1 call.

[18] Martinez also provided officers with information regarding the direction in which the intruder had fled from her house, and along that same direction officers detained White. Martinez then identified White as the intruder with one-hundred percent confidence about one hour after she had first seen the intruder. We have recognized a show-up identification that occurred two hours and fifteen minutes after an offense was “close enough to the commission of the crime such that the image of the perpetrator was likely to be fresh in [the victim's] mind.” Mitchell v. State, 690 N.E.2d 1200, 1204 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998), trans. denied. All the more so here.

[19] Further, several of the purported inaccuracies in Martinez's descriptions of the intruder are readily explainable. In a poorly lit room, a blue bandana head covering and slicked-back hair could be indistinguishable. Similarly, given the fact that the intruder's pants were not where they ought to have been when Martinez first saw him, a pattern on his pants could easily have been missed. And that Martinez did not identify White one way or the other during the initial forty seconds she saw him detained while she was across the street is also readily explainable by the distance and the early morning light.

[20] In sum, the facts most favorable to the trial court's decision support its conclusion that the show-up identification procedure did not violate White's due-process rights. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it admitted the State's identification evidence. Further, White's additional argument that Martinez's identification of him as the intruder was not sufficient to support his convictions is merely a request for this Court to reweigh the evidence, which we will not do.

Conclusion

[21] We affirm White's convictions.

[22] Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   White does not argue that his rights under the Indiana Constitution were violated.

Mathias, Judge.

Brown, J., and Kenworthy, J., concur.