United States v. Dennis Leon Barron

The La Habra branch of the Bank of America was robbed by two armed men on the afternoon of May 14, .1976. The first man entered the bank through the rear door and ordered the employees and customers to get on one side of the bank. Almost immediately another man entered the front door, leaped over the counter, grabbed some money, and jumped back over the counter. The robbers left the bank approximately two minutes after their entry, taking with them $17,255. The bank’s automatic surveillance cameras photographed the robbery.

The appellant Barron, identified at trial as the front door robber, was convicted of armed bank robbery in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. On appeal Barron urges that his conviction must be reversed because of impermissibly suggestive pretrial identification procedures, exclusion of his alibi witnesses, and unwarranted restrictions on defense counsel’s closing arguments. We have considered all of the arguments raised by the appellant, and we affirm.

I. Pretrial Identification Procedures

Seven eye-witnesses to the robbery testified for the prosecution and identified Barron at trial as the front door robber. Their…