United States v. Robert Edward Field

Field was convicted of armed bank robbery pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a), (d). On appeal he claims that certain eye witness evidence admitted by the district court violated his right to due process of law, and that certain rulings by the district court were erroneous. We agree with Field’s due process claim and reverse the conviction.

I

On the morning of March 6, 1979, two men robbed a Barclay’s Bank located in Woodland Hills, California. During the robbery, which lasted one and one-half to two minutes, the shorter of the two robbers brandished a pistol and took money from .three of the six tellers then on duty, while his companion took money from the remaining three tellers. After taking a total of $11,470, the robbers left the bank through a rear door and escaped in a dark-colored Toronado automobile.

During trial two months later, two tellers and one customer of the bank identified Field as the shorter robber. In addition, all counsel stipulated that the car in which the robbers escaped, the license number of which was recorded by an observer outside the bank, was registered to Field’s wife.

Field introduced an alibi defense. He claimed that he and his daughter spent part…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I agree with the majority that two of the identifications should not have been admitted and that the judgment must be reversed. With regard to the third, Jacobson, identification, I cannot agree that further proceedings on its admissibility, more than eighteen months after the robbery, are warranted. I would hold that Jacobson’s identification should have been excluded as well.

Jacobson may well have had the opportunity to view the robber with great attentiveness, but the opportunity lasted only one minute and she was not wearing her glasses. The inconsistency between her post robbery description and her identification of the defendant weeks later, coupled with her lack of certainty, strongly indicate that the appearance of the robber never registered sufficiently to enable her to make any reliable identification. These facts must also be viewed in the light of impermissibly suggestive circumstances: the witness was present when an F.B.I. agent identified photographs of the defendant as the suspect; she saw the defendant handcuffed prior to trial. Her first positive identification of the defendant occurred, not coincidentally in my…

625 F.2d 862 6 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1237 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert Edward FIELD, Defendant-Appellant. No. 79-1533. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Submitted Feb. 5, 1980. Decided Aug. 1, 1980. Rudolph A. Diaz, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant-appellant. Richard G. Drooyan, Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., argued for plaintiff-appellee; Andrea Sheridan Ordin, U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., on brief. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Before WALLACE and SCHROEDER, Circuit Judges, and HANSON, * District Judge. WALLACE, Circuit Judge: 1 Field was convicted of armed bank robbery pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a), (d). On appeal he claims that certain eye witness evidence admitted by the district court violated his right to due process of law, and that certain rulings by the district court were erroneous. We agree with Field's due process claim and reverse the conviction. 2 * On the morning of March 6, 1979, two men robbed a Barclay's Bank located in Woodland Hills, California. During the robbery, which lasted one and one-half to two minutes, the shorter of the two robbers brandished a…