Under Commonwealth v. Crayton, a witness cannot identify a defendant during trial unless (1) the witness knew the defendant at the time of the alleged offense or (2) the witness identified the defendant outside of court through a line up or some other identification procedure.
There are, however, exceptions to this general rule.
A witness can identify a defendant for the first time during trial if there is “good cause” for doing so.
According to Crayton,
there may be ‘good reason’ where the eyewitness was familiar with the defendant before the commission of the crime….Good reason also exists where the witness is an arresting officer who was also an eyewitness to the commission of the crime, and the identification merely confirms that the defendant is the person who was arrested for the charged crime.
Today the Appeals Court ruled that court officers at the Fall River Justice Center had “good cause” to identify a defendant at trial after that defendant allegedly assaulted the officers.
There was “good reason” for the in-court identifications of the defendant. First, when the court officers retrieved the defendant from a cell, they referred to a packet of materials known as a “jacket,” a clear sleeve that contains the detainee’s name, photograph, and the reason for the court appearance. Therefore, each was familiar with the defendant before he committed the assaults. Second, both officers were in the elevator with the defendant when the fracas began; the defendant never left the sight of one officer and only briefly left the sight of the other. Therefore they were eyewitnesses to the crime. Third, the defendant attacked the officers, making them not just eyewitnesses, but also victims. Fourth, after the defendant’s attacks, the officers confined him in a holding cell, where he remained until escorted away by other court officers. We are satisfied that the officers’ in-court identifications served as “confirmation that the defendant sitting in the court room [was] the person whose conduct [was] at issue rather than as identification evidence” and were thus supported by “good reason.”
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.