State v. Mitchell

In the exercise of our discretionary certiorari right of review1 we treat the State’s notice of appeal in this case as a petition for writ of certiorari.2

We find that the trial court departed from the essential requirements "of law when it excluded from evidence the identification testimony of the State’s only two eyewitnesses by ruling as a matter of law on the facts of this case that their testimony had been irretrievably tainted by unnecessarily suggestive out-of-court police identification procedures. See Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 93 S.Ct. 375, 34 L.Ed.2d 401 (1972); Grant v. State,…