Section 16.16 Identification of Person Made After Perceiving the Person

• Library: Evidence 2017

2. (§16.16) Identification of Person Made After Perceiving the Person

The title—Identification of Person Made After Perceiving the Person—of this hearsay exception is a rather cumbersome way of saying that a witness may testify as to their own pretrial identification of a person, usually the accused in a criminal trial. The only qualification is that the declarant testify in court and be subject to cross-examination. State v. Rima, 395 S.W.2d 102 (Mo. banc 1965). The Missouri courts do not even regard this in-court testimony by the declarant to be hearsay. As the Court said in State v. Quinn, 594 S.W.2d 599, 603 (Mo. banc 1980), testimony by the identifying witness “is not hearsay because it is direct testimony as to a fact about which the witness has personal knowledge.” And, it is a prior consistent out-of-court statement offered for the truth of what is stated.

The question is a little trickier when the...