Connecticut v. Quavon Torres

This Court has held that, “when the police have arranged suggestive circumstances leading the witness to identify a particular person as the perpetrator of a crime,” the trial judge must prescreen that identification for reliability. Perry v. New Hampshire, 565 U.S. 232 (2012). This Court’s prescreening decisions have given rise to a nationwide division over whether prescreening is likewise required for “first time in-court identifications,” i.e., in-court identifications by eyewitnesses who had not previously identified the defendant outside of the trial. The question presented is: Does the Due Process Clause require judicial prescreening of first time in-court identifications in criminal trials, and, if it does, what is the proper test for determining their admissibility?