In Court Identification - Who's Rights Matter More? Walker v Commowealth
Oral Arguments of the Supreme Court of Virginia
English - May 16, 2023 14:06 - 32 minutes - 22.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsGovernment News supremecourt virginia benglass benglasslaw lawyer legal legaltraining oralargument oralarguments supremecourtofvirginia Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
The defendant challenged the admissibility of an in-court identification of him.
Here's what the lower court (Court of Appeals) said:
In the vast majority of contested criminal trials, a witness will take the stand and testify under oath that the defendant, who is present in the courtroom, is the person who committed the crime. It happens routinely in trials conducted in the courts of the Commonwealth and has happened for as long as there have been such trials and courts. Despite the fact such a question and answer in the course of a criminal trial was a common occurrence when the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted in 1776, when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, and when every subsequent version of the Virginia Constitution has been ratified, Walker contends that such questions and answers potentially offend the due process protections enshrined in each of the referenced documents.