According to Sanders’ testimony, the assailant “was saying something” to one of the men in the group and started “pushing” Young. T. at 978. Sanders characterized the assailant’s actions toward Young as “irritating.” T. at 978. All the witnesses that testified to the matter stated that Redd was the only person at the scene who spoke to Young or took actions that could be characterized as “irritating.”

Sanders told the police within hours after the shooting, unequivocally, that he “wouldn’t recognize [the shooter] again except for his clothes.”  One month later, long after Davis’ arrest, the police asked Sanders if he had any newfound confidence in his ability to identify the shooter.  Sanders did not.  The detectives were sufficiently convinced of Sanders’ inability to accurately choose among the five photos one month after the shooting that they never presented him with the photo array then or at any point prior to trial.  And Sanders suggested otherwise to the police.  He never said "I am now able to make an identification. Please show me the photo array."

Similarly, according to the police report, none of the seven other men in the van were shown the photo array despite the fact that the detectives had it in hand when they visited the group of men a few weeks after the shooting and that some of Sanders' friends had previously indicated to police that they believed that they could recognize the shooter.  Why were the detectives afraid to show the photo array to these men?

The day before Sanders' testimony, and after viewing a recent photo of Davis from the newspaper coverage of the trial, Sanders was asked - almost on a lark - by the prosecutor if there was anyway "possible" that he could identify the shooter as Davis, the only man on trial for the shooting, sat in front of him.  Astonishingly, Sanders identified Davis as the shooter.  When pressed by defense on his belated and highly suspicious in-court identification, Sanders stated, “[Y]ou don’t forget someone that stands over and shoots someone.”  

Really?  Doesn't that assume that there was a point in time when Sanders actually remembered the face of the shooter?  How is it that Sanders could remember what he never knew?

Ironically, the most dubious eyewitness had the peculiar distinction of being the most confident.  The jurors did not know that one month after the shooting the police remained sufficiently convinced in Sanders’ inability to choose their suspect from a group of five photos that they decided not to take that risk.  Indeed, the police were unwilling to risk showing the array to any of Sanders’ companions – all out-of-towners, who presumably did not experience extensive exposure to Davis’ image.