Gilbert v. California

Mr. Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case was argued with United States v. Wade, ante, p. 218, and presents the same alleged constitutional error in the admission in evidence of in-court identifications there considered. In addition, petitioner alleges con [*265] stitutional errors in the admission in evidence of testimony of some of the witnesses that they also identified him at the lineup, in the admission of handwriting exemplars taken from him after his arrest, and in the admission of out-of-court statements by King, a co-defendant, mentioning petitioner’s part in the crimes, which statements, on the co-defendant’s appeal decided with petitioner’s, were held to have been improperly admitted against the co-defendant. Finally, he alleges that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by a police seizure of photographs of him from his locked apartment after entry without a search warrant, and the admission of testimony of witnesses that they identified him from those photographs within hours after the crime.

Petitioner was convicted in the Superior Court of California of the armed robbery of the Mutual Savings and Loan Association of Alhambra and the murder of a police officer who entered during the course of the robbery. There were separate guilt and penalty stages of the trial before the same jury, which rendered a guilty verdict and imposed the death penalty. The California Supreme Court affirmed, 63 Cal. 2d 690, 408 P. 2d 365. We granted certiorari, 384 U. S. 985, and set the case for argument with Wade and with Stovall v. Denno, post, p. 293. If our holding today in Wade is applied to this case, the issue whether admission of the in-court and lineup identifications is constitutional error which requires a new trial could be resolved on this record only after further proceedings in the California courts. We must therefore first determine whether petitioner’s other contentions warrant any greater relief.