Jarrett v. Headley

Respondent Frank R. Headley (hereinafter "the State"), Superintendent of the New York State correctional facility at which petitioner Patsy Kelly Jarrett is imprisoned, appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, David N. Edelstein, Judge, conditionally granting Jarretts petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the identification of Jarrett at her state trial was unreliable and resulted from impermissibly suggestive police and prosecutorial procedures, in violation of her right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. See 633 F. Supp. 1403 (1986). The State contends principally that the police and prosecutorial procedures were not impermissibly suggestive and that, in any event, the identification of Jarrett was independently reliable. We conclude that the district court erred in finding that the in-court identification of Jarrett at trial was the result of impermissibly suggestive law enforcement procedures, and we therefore reverse.