Manson v. Brathwaite

This case presents the issue as to whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment compels the exclusion, in a state criminal trial, apart from any consideration of reliability, of pretrihl identification evidence obtained by a police procedure that was both suggestive and unnecessary. This Court’s decisions in Stovall v. Denno, 388 U. S. 293 (1967), and Neil v. Biggers, 409 U. S. 188 (1972), are particularly implicated.

I

Jimmy D. Glover, a full-time trooper of the Connecticut State Police, in 1970 was assigned to the Narcotics Division in an undercover capacity. On May 5 of that…