State V. Delaney

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Memorandum Date: 2/5/02 To: Carolyn Hess Cc: From: Rohit Bhasin RE: State v. Delaney In the case of State v. Delaney there are many issues that need to be addressed. The First issue is the credibility of Val Cavarretta. Another is the cause that detective Lowery had in picking up the alleged suspect. The only thing he had to go on was the statement of a drug dealer whose credibility is still in question. The robbery occurred on September 14th and the lineup was not conducted until September 22nd, how sure could Mr. Waitkus be that Mr. Delaney was the alleged robber? The next question is why were the people in the lineup so closely related in physical features? Same race, all within two inches in height and ten pounds in weight. Another issue is how old were the finger prints that the police had on hand of Mr. Delaney and what condition were they kept in.

Have they been tampered with? These questions are not asked or answered anywhere. Another disturbing issue is that Mr. Waitkus when asked to pick a person out of a lineup was not sure whether Mr. Delaney was the robber. In the Police Lineup Form Mr. Waitkus states "I think #4 is probably the person". This raises the issue of if Mr. Waitkus is not one hundred percent positive why is Mr. Delaney even being held in custody. Mr. Waitkus stated that the lighting in the store was very good and he got a good look at the suspect, but then he also said that the suspect was wearing a baseball cap that covered half of his face. How could Mr. Waitkus have gotten a good look if the suspects face was half covered? Another intriguing issue is the fact that Mr. Cavarretta struck...