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Appeals court weighs whether court‑officer identifications survive Kraton challenge in Lara appeal
Summary
In Commonwealth v. Lara, defense counsel argued that two court officers misidentified a different person at trial and that the in‑court identifications were effectively show‑ups; the Commonwealth urged the court‑officer exception and cited the courtroom’s closed context and contemporaneous materials (photograph jackets, video).
Joseph Vone, representing Kevin Lara, told the panel that both court officers who testified at trial thereafter identified the wrong person and that the court’s ‘good‑reason’ finding lacked foundation. Vone argued the mistake went to admissibility under Kraton because the in‑court identification functioned like a show‑up and the defense had not had a reliable pretrial identification procedure.
The court…
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