United States v. Willie Peele

The appellant, Peele, challenges his conviction for bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 , 2113(a) & (d). The sole issue here is whether the trial court erred in refusing to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether a newspaper photograph identifying Peele as the robber was so suggestive to eyewitnesses that exclusion of their trial testimony was required. We affirm.

On January 27, 1977 two armed men entered and robbed the Seattle Heights Branch of the Old National Bank of Washington. One of the pair entering the bank wore a nylon stocking over his head. The issue at the trial was the identity of this masked robber. The Government charged it was Peele.

As the two robbers left the bank, police units arrived. One robber fled on foot and the other, allegedly Peele, fled in a blue automobile driven by a third participant. Witnesses saw the men change from the blue car to a yellow one. Within ten minutes after the robbery, the yellow car was stopped and the driver and Peele were arrested. The Government states, and appellant does not dispute, that newspaper reporters were “chasing around” during the ten-minute interval between the robbery and appellant’s arrest. Reporters were…