Rape Victim Lineup Identification

In People v. Gray, 457 Mich. 107; 577 N.W.2d 92 (1998), a rape victim tentatively identified the defendant in a corporeal lineup and then later confirmed her identification when a police officer came to her home and, allegedly to allay her fears, told her a suspect had been arrested and showed her a photograph of the defendant. The Court found that the officer's action was impermissibly suggestive, but found that there was an independent basis for the victim's identification of the defendant. The Court first noted that the remedy for an unduly suggestive identification procedure is suppression of the in-court identification unless there is an independent basis for its admission. Id. at 114, n 8; In Gray, the nighttime assault lasted approximately an hour, the victim described the five-foot, eight-inch, 180-to-190-pound defendant as a stocky six feet, and her initial identification was tentative. However, the Court found that the improper photographic display was relevant to the weight of the victim's testimony rather than its admissibility and concluded, primarily on the basis of the victim's opportunity to observe the offense and her previous proper, albeit tentative, identification of the defendant, that there was a sufficient independent basis for the admission of her in-court identification. Gray, supra at 117.