Vilis HāznersDOJ INS Post-Trial Brief—Annotated

34

There was also a question about the admissibility of Exhibit G-5, a photospread consisting of 10 of the 18 pictures which had comprised the Israeli photospread. The reason for showing a photospread to the witnesses at the trial was to determine which picture they previously identified. 43/ Given this purpose, it would have sufficed to have shown the witness the photograph he had chosen and to have asked him whether he had seen it before and under what circumstances. The better practice, of course, is to show a group of photos, but the difference between presenting the witness with a single photograph and a group of them is in the weight given the evidence, not in its admissibility. It follows that the difference in form between Exhibit G-5 and the photos that the witnesses saw in Israel is irrelevant. What matters is that Exhibit G-5 contained the pictures the witnesses identified in Israel and that they picked the same photos at the trial, thus reaffirming their initial identification. Once it was established that Exhibit G-5 contained the actual picture identified by the witnesses as the man who committed the crimes about which they testified, it should have been admitted in evidence. 1This court is not bound by the rigid formality of the rules of evidence, so the failure to admit the spread is not critical. Since the photographs are part of the record, there is ample basis for finding that this respondent and the person who committed the acts about which the government's witnesses testified are one and the same.