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Criminal Procedure — suggestive photo arrays — harmless error

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//June 7, 2012//

Criminal Procedure — suggestive photo arrays — harmless error

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//June 7, 2012//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — suggestive photo arrays — harmless error

Even though a photo array was suggestive, admission of the identification was harmless error, where DNA evidence linked the defendant to the crime.

“[W]e think the error was harmless. There was no doubt that the dust mask found outside the bank was the robber’s, and the DNA found on the dust mask matched the defendant’s DNA. Moreover, even if not permitted to identify the defendant as the robber, the manager would have been permitted to testify that the robber was a pale-visaged freckled white man, for that is what he had told the police immediately after the robbery; and the jurors could have compared the description with the defendant sitting in front of them. The jury also could have compared the bank manager’s description with the pictures of the robber taken by the bank’s surveillance camera during the robbery and shown at the trial. The manager had described the robber to the police as 5’10” and he testified at trial that the robber was close to his own height of 5’10”. Still frames from the surveillance footage reveals that the two men are indeed of approximately the same height.”

Affirmed.

11-2034 U.S. v. Ford

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gettleman, J., Posner, J.

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