Cite as: 514 U. S. 419 (1995)
Scalia, J., dissenting
beside Territo and stopped while waiting to make a turn. Petitioner looked Territo full in the face. Territo testified, "I got a good look at him. If I had been in the passenger seat of the little truck, I could have reached out and not even stretched my arm out, I could have grabbed hold of him." Tr. 13-14 (Dec. 6, 1984). Territo also testified that a detective had shown him a picture of Beanie and asked him if the picture "could have been the guy that did it. I told him no." Id., at 24. The second eyewitness, Kersh, also saw petitioner shoot Mrs. Dye. When asked whether she got "a good look" at him as he drove away, she answered "yes." Id., at 32. She also answered "yes" to the question whether she "got to see the side of his face," id., at 31, and said that while petitioner was stopped she had driven to within reaching distance of the driver's-side door of Mrs. Dye's car and stopped there. Id., at 34. The third eyewitness, Smallwood, testified that he saw petitioner shoot Mrs. Dye, walk to the car, and drive away. Id., at 42. Petitioner drove slowly by, within a distance of 15 or 25 feet, id., at 43-45, and Smallwood saw his face from the side. Id., at 43. The fourth eyewitness, Williams, who had been working outside the parking lot, testified that "the gentleman came up the side of the car," struggled with Mrs. Dye, shot her, walked around to the driver's side of the car, and drove away. Id., at 52. Williams not only "saw him before he shot her," id., at 54, but watched petitioner drive slowly by "within less than ten feet." Ibid. When asked "[d]id you get an opportunity to look at him good?", Williams said, "I did." Id., at 55.
The Court attempts to dispose of this direct, unqualified, and consistent eyewitness testimony in two ways. First, by relying on a theory so implausible that it was apparently not suggested by petitioner's counsel until the oral-argument-cum-evidentiary-hearing held before us, perhaps because it is a theory that only the most removed appellate court could
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