ABSTRACT
Courts have ruled that, in examining the constitutionality of pretrial identification procedures under the due process clause, the court must first determine whether the procedure was unnecessarily suggestive and must then weigh the corrupting influence of the suggestive procedure against the reliability of the identification itself. If the pretrial identification takes place at a showup rather than a lineup, improper procedures could also contaminate the in-court identification. The Court cautioned that witness identification at trial following a pretrial identification by photographs would be set aside if the photographic identification procedure was so suggestive that it would create a substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. Although fingerprinting and photographing suspects are common practices, these procedures have not always gone unchallenged. The Supreme Court has held that counsel must be present if requested by the suspect or if one has been appointed. Another means of identification, although certainly rarer than fingerprinting, is dental examination.
