Case Title: The People v. Gregory Allen The People v. Quentin Abney

Citation: 

Docket Number: Case No. 139

State: new-york

Court: New York Appellate Court

Date: 2009-10-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before
publication in the New York Reports.
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No. 139  
The People &c.,
            Respondent,
        v.
Quentin Abney,
            Appellant.
------------------------
No. 140  
The People &c., 
            Respondent,  
        v. 
Gregory Allen,  
            Appellant.
Case No. 139:
Brian H. Polovoy, for appellant.
Patrick J. Hynes, for respondent.
The Innocence Project, amicus curiae.
Case No. 140:
Karen M. Kalikow, for appellant.
Daniel Bresnahan, for respondent.
READ, J.:
Defendants in both of these cases unsuccessfully sought
to introduce expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness
identification.  The question for us to decide is whether, in
light of our decisions in People v Lee (96 NY2d 157 [2001]),
People v Young (7 NY3d 40 [2006]) and, especially, People v
LeGrand (8 NY3d 449 [2007]), the trial courts abused their
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Nos. 139, 140
1The trials in Abney and Allen were both completed after our
decision in Lee, but before our decisions in Young and LeGrand,
which elaborated on the principles announced in Lee.
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discretion when they disallowed this testimony.  We conclude that
the trial judge in Abney abused his discretion, but that the
trial judge in Allen did not.1  
I.
Abney
A.  Facts and Trial
On June 2, 2005 at about 3:20 P.M., 13-year-old Farhana
U., on her way home from school, was descending well-lit stairs
into the subway station near the corner of Essex and Delancey
Streets in Manhattan when a man whom she did not know approached
her and asked for "some change."  This man stood face-to-face
with Farhana, about two feet away.  She initially did not think
he intended to harm her and was not afraid.  Looking him squarely
in the face, she said she had no change. 
After Farhana "took a couple of steps forward," the
stranger wheeled in front of her, placed a knife with a six-inch
blade and "a big curve on the end" near her throat, and asked her
"a couple of times" to hand over her necklace, a gold chain with
a locket.  As this man stood close by her, Farhana was "looking
at his face"; she was "really scared" and "didn't know what to
do."  When Farhana refused his demand, screaming "No," he ripped
the chain off her neck, and fled up the stairs.  This entire
encounter was fleeting.
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Nos. 139, 140
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Farhana continued down the stairs into the subway
station and reported the robbery to a token clerk.  At about 4:30
P.M., Detective Samuel DeJesus interviewed her at his desk in the
transit station house at Columbus Circle.  According to Detective
DeJesus, Farhana seemed frightened; she told him that she had
been robbed at knifepoint by a stranger, a black man in his
thirties who was over six feet tall, had "pinkish" lips, and wore
a short-sleeved blue shirt and a blue bandana.  
Farhana's physical description of the robber and how he
carried out the crime prompted Detective DeJesus to suspect
defendant Quentin Abney: he was familiar with defendant on
account of his arrest for an earlier subway-related robbery. 
Telling Farhana that he would be "right back," the detective left
his desk to put together an array of six photographs, including
defendant's.  When he returned, he told Farhana that he "was
going to show her a group of photos and, if she recognized
anyone, to let [him] know which one and what number."  Pointing
out defendant's photograph, she responded, "that's him, number
six."
On June 22, 2005, Detective Ernest Dorvil telephoned
Farhana at her home to ask her to view a lineup.  Upon arrival at
the station house, she waited in an office with the door shut
while the lineup was being put together.  From the office,
Farhana could not see defendant, who was in a "cell area" on the
other side of the building, or any of the "fillers" selected to
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Nos. 139, 140
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participate in the lineup.  Once the lineup was assembled,
Detective Dorvil escorted Farhana to the viewing room, where they
were joined by another police officer and defendant's attorney. 
She identified defendant, in position number four (there were six
men in the lineup); Farhana was "sure" that he was the man who
had asked her for change and then robbed her at knifepoint. 
Defendant was arrested and charged with one count of
robbery in the first degree (Penal Law § 160.15 [3]).  At the
subsequent jury trial, Farhana testified on direct examination
that the man who robbed her had a dark brown complexion, "puppy
dog eyes," and "pinkish-purplish lips"; she did not remember
whether he was wearing anything over his head, but thought his
shirt was blue.  Defense counsel cross-examined Detective DeJesus
about the details of Farhana's initial description of the robber;
Detective Dorvil about the lineup, eliciting testimony that he
let Farhana know ahead of time that a suspect was included (which
she contradicted, saying that the detective told her only that he
wanted her to view "a couple of people"); and Farhana about the
lineup and the appearance of the knife. 
Defendant presented an alibi defense, contending that,
at or around the time of the robbery, he was picking up his
girlfriend Mary Nimmons's daughter from preschool in Brooklyn and
that, before and after doing this, he was at Nimmons's home at 64
MacDougal Street in Brooklyn.  His alibi witnesses were Nimmons
(the mother of two children by defendant) and her sister and two
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Nos. 139, 140
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cousins; and Carolyn Murphy, an assistant teacher at the
preschool.  
Murphy testified that, on June 2, 2005, defendant
picked up Nimmons's daughter.  She claimed to recall the date
because the very next day -- June 3, 2005 -- Nimmons came to the
school to obtain a copy of the sign-in sheet reflecting that
fact.  While Nimmons also initially testified that she got the
sign-in sheet on June 3, she later professed to have picked it up
at defendant's request some time after his arrest on June 22,
2005.  Murphy further testified that she was one of the employees
responsible for making sure the sign-in sheets were filled out
properly, and that the sheet was checked for accuracy every time
it was signed.
  
On rebuttal, the parties stipulated that "the logbook
[of sign-in sheets] from March through June [would] be entered
into evidence and made available to the jury and [could] be
referenced in the closing arguments."  In general, the sign-in
sheets were filled in irregularly -- some days children were
signed in, but not signed out; and in some places where a
signature appeared, no time was filled in.  The sheet dated June
2, 2005 from the March-June logbook exhibit differed from the
sheet dated June 2, 2005 admitted on defendant's behalf.  The
former stated that defendant picked up Nimmons's daughter at 3:04
P.M.; the latter pegged the time at 3:00 P.M.
The jury convicted defendant of first-degree robbery,
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Nos. 139, 140
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and Supreme Court sentenced him as a persistent violent felony
offender to a prison term of 20 years to life.  He appealed.
B.  Proffer of Expert Testimony
Before jury selection, defendant made a motion in
limine to present expert testimony concerning "psychological
factors of memory and perception that may affect the accuracy of
witness identification."  Specifically, he sought to call Dr.
Solomon M. Fulero, who would "educat[e] the jurors on many
counterintuitive findings that bear directly on the reliability
of the identification evidence in [the] case," which were beyond
the average juror's ken.  Defendant identified 15 such factors:
stress, exposure time, color perception under monochromatic
light, event violence, cross-racial accuracy, similarity of
lineup fillers, lineup instructions, rate of memory loss,
postevent information, the wording of questions posed to an
eyewitness, unconscious transference to the crime scene of
someone seen in another situation or context, the witness's
preexisting attitudes and expectations, simultaneous and
sequential lineups, the lack of correlation of confidence and
accuracy, and confidence malleability.  He specifically noted
that the robbery was brief, the victim was under stress, and a
weapon was used.
 
Supreme Court denied the motion as premature, with
leave to renew at the close of the People's direct case.  The
trial judge observed that while he was aware that the People's
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Nos. 139, 140
2We subsequently decided in LeGrand that studies about the
potential effect of postevent information on the reliability of
an eyewitness identification are, in fact, generally accepted as
scientifically valid (8 NY3d at 458).
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case hinged on the eyewitness testimony of the 13-year-old
victim, "at this juncture, . . . [he], in the exercise of
discretion, [did] not consider [the] case an appropriate one for
an expert identification witness" for several reasons.
The trial judge reasoned that "[a]s a threshold
matter," defendant's papers did not "appropriately narrow the
scope of the expert's proposed testimony," which therefore
threatened to turn into "a full-fledged seminar . . . which could
lead to hours of academic discussion and speculation."  Second,
the proffered testimony about how police investigative techniques
might influence a lineup identification was not relevant because
the victim had previously picked out a photograph from an array,
and so must have realized that a suspect would be included in the
lineup.  Third, two of the proposed subjects of testimony --
postevent information and unconscious transference -- "[had] not
passed the Frye test" in other courts.2  Fourth, evidence about
simultaneous versus sequential lineups was "unmanageable in a
trial setting," because juries were "not experts on
constitutional law and procedure and [could not] be educated
about those topics during a trial."
Finally, the trial judge commented that "jurors know
that, as a matter of common sense, a person's memory does fade as
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Nos. 139, 140
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time passes."  In his view, "[m]any" of defendant's concerns
relative to the accuracy of Farhana's eyewitness identification
could be adequately addressed by tailoring cross-examination and
the jury charge.  He indicated that defendant was "free to renew
his motion at the close of the People's case, at which time he
[should] narrow his proffer to the specific topics that he
believes are relevant to the facts of this case."
After the People rested, defendant did, in fact, renew
his motion, proposing a more limited range of subjects to be
covered.  Specifically, he asked to elicit expert testimony about
the effect of event stress, exposure time, event violence and
weapon focus, cross-racial identification, and lineup
instructions, in addition to a new topic, double blind lineups. 
Defendant pointed out specific circumstances of his case to which
the proposed testimony would be relevant.  While acknowledging
the trial judge's earlier ruling that witness confidence could be
addressed through jury instructions, defendant specifically took
exception to it.
The trial judge denied defendant's renewed motion on
the ground that "having had the benefit of the witness'
testimony," there was "nothing unique about [the] case . . . 
present[ing] issues that are beyond the ken of the ordinary
juror."  In his view, the relevant issues had been explored
adequately during cross-examination, and could be argued in
summation and covered in the jury charge.
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Nos. 139, 140
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C.  Appellate Division
The Appellate Division, with two Justices dissenting,
affirmed the judgment of conviction and sentence.  The court
observed that LeGrand -- where the People's case rested on
identifications made nearly seven years after the crime -- did
not mandate admission of Dr. Fulero's testimony.  The court
commented that "[t]he unusual fact pattern presented in LeGrand
raise[d] a genuine question as to whether that case's rule . . .
applie[d] in cases, like this one, where the circumstances create
much less doubt about the reliability of the identification
testimony" (People v Abney, 57 AD3d 35, 43 [1st Dept 2008]).
The Appellate Division saw no need to answer this
question, however, because of significant evidence corroborating
defendant's guilt, such that "by the terms of the LeGrand rule
itself, the exclusion of the proffered expert testimony was
within Supreme Court's discretion" (id.).  This corroborative
evidence was the testimony of defendant's own witnesses (Nimmons
and Murphy), which suggested that he sought to document an alibi
long before he was arrested for the robbery.  The court
recognized that, because this testimony was not elicited before
the close of the People's direct case, Supreme Court might have
erred in refusing to permit Dr. Fulero to testify.  In the
Appellate Division's view, however, defendant's alibi evidence
ultimately rendered any such error harmless.
The two dissenting Justices concluded that the trial
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Nos. 139, 140
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judge abused his discretion when he denied defendant's renewed
motion at a time when there was "not a scintilla" of evidence
corroborating the eyewitness's identification (id. at 49).  In
their view, he should have considered the four factors enumerated
in LeGrand, which they thought were generally met in this case. 
They acknowledged that certain of the subjects that Dr. Fulero
proposed to cover were not recognized by the courts as generally
accepted within the relevant scientific community, but faulted
the trial judge for summarily rejecting this evidence without
first conducting a Frye hearing.  A dissenting Justice
subsequently granted defendant permission to appeal to us. 
Allen
A. Facts and Trial
At around 3:30 P.M. on March 10, 2004, two masked men
barged into a busy barbershop in Queens, located across from the
Woodside Housing Project.  The mask worn by one of the men, who
wielded what appeared to be a knife, left exposed the top portion
of his face from his top lip to above his eyebrows.  His
accomplice (who has never been apprehended) displayed a gun and
stated, "This is a holdup."  The gunman grabbed Juan Almonte, one
of the barbers, and pulled back the slide on his gun.  He next
struck the shop owner in the face with the gun; he chased down a
barber who tried to escape to the basement, dragged him back, put
a gun into his mouth, and rifled his pants pockets; he demanded
money from another barber, who emptied his pockets of about $30
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Nos. 139, 140
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in tips.
The knife-wielding intruder asked Almonte for money,
checked around his neck for a chain, tried to open an apparently
locked drawer at his barber station, and then called out to the
gunman, "It's time to go."  The two robbers instructed everyone
present to lie down on the floor.  They fled the shop together,
and someone called the police.  This entire incident lasted only
a few minutes.
Gabriel Bierd, a customer in the shop, quickly realized
that the knife-wielding robber was defendant Gregory Allen, whom
he encountered regularly in the neighborhood.  Bierd had heard
defendant's speaking voice several times during the previous six
months, and he recognized him from both his "[b]ody type" and his
voice.
  
When Sergeant Ronald Buell arrived at the barbershop to
investigate the robbery, Bierd provided him with defendant's
nicknames -- "Junior" and "J.R." -- and described him as a black
male, about 5'8" or 5'9" tall.  Bierd accompanied Sergeant Buell
to the squad house, and looked through a "photo mug book" with
180 photographs, one to a page.  Pedigree information was covered
up.  He picked out defendant's photograph (at page 64),
identifying him as the knife-wielding robber.  At Sergeant
Buell's instruction, though, he looked through the remainder of
the book.  Buell then prepared a photographic array with six
photographs, and Bierd selected defendant's.  Sergeant Buell
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Nos. 139, 140
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drove to the barbershop and showed this photographic array to
Almonte, who likewise identified defendant as the knife-wielding
robber.
  
Defendant was arrested at about 10:30 P.M. on the day
of the robbery.  He was charged with four counts of robbery in
the first degree (Penal Law § 160.15[3], [4]), two counts of
attempted robbery in the first degree (Penal Law §§
110.00/160.15[3], [4]), two counts of robbery in the second
degree (Penal Law § 160.10[1]), and three counts of attempted
robbery in the second degree (Penal Law §§ 110.00/160.10[1],
[2a]). 
At defendant's trial, Bierd and Almonte recounted the
robbery, and explained how they immediately recognized defendant
as the knife-wielding robber.  They testified to having picked
defendant out in a lineup on July 7, 2004; they identified him in
court.
Detective David Beutel testified that he arrested
defendant on March 10, 2004 and, when he asked him his name,
defendant replied that his nicknames were "Junior" and "J.R." 
Detective Beutel attempted to put together a lineup the next day,
but defendant would not cooperate; he pulled his shirt over his
head, got into the fetal position on a table, and refused to sit
and hold up a number unless all the men in the lineup wore masks. 
Pursuant to court order, Detective Beutel finally organized a
lineup on July 7, 2004, four months later.  Bierd, Almonte and
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Nos. 139, 140
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the barbershop's owner each viewed the lineup separately.  Bierd
and Almonte identified defendant as the knife-wielding robber;
the shop owner did not recognize anyone.
Defendant called five defense witnesses.  An
investigator with the Legal Aid Society recounted her interview
with Almonte, stating that he told her that he could see the skin
around the knife-wielding robber's eyes and the bridge of his
nose, and that his mask did not have a hole for the nose. 
Another investigator testified that he was present at the lineup
on July 7, 2004, and that defendant's attorney asked for all the
lineup participants to wear ski masks; a police officer testified
that he recovered six latent prints from the door of the
barbershop; and a detective testified that none of those prints
matched defendant's.  Finally, Danielle Allen, defendant's
sister, told the jury that her brother had a scar on his nose as
a result of a dog bite suffered in childhood, and that he had
long had a scar on his cheek.  Photographs showing these scars
were admitted into evidence.  Allen further explained that, at
the time of the robbery, defendant was dating someone who lived
in the Woodside Housing Project.
The jury convicted defendant of all the charges
submitted to it (the trial judge dismissed three counts).  On
February 28, 2006, defendant was sentenced to concurrent,
determinate prison terms of 15 years on each first-degree robbery
conviction, ten years on each attempted first-degree and second-
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Nos. 139, 140
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degree robbery conviction, seven years on each attempted second-
degree robbery conviction, and five years' postrelease
supervision.  He appealed.
B.  Proffer of Expert Testimony
On July 14, 2005, defendant moved in limine to admit
the expert testimony of Professor Stephen Penrod regarding 17
"psychological factors of memory and perception that may affect
the accuracy of eyewitness identifications."  Attached to the
motion was Dr. Penrod's curriculum vitae, a list of his
publications, and a document written by Dr. Penrod discussing
many of the factors about which he proposed to testify, but not
how these factors were relevant to the case.  This document
mentioned unconscious transference only once, describing this
phenomenon as when "an innocent person seen in some other context
can be mistakenly identified as having been seen at a crime or
where a bystander at the scene is mistaken as the perpetrator."
The People opposed the motion on the ground that
defendant had not demonstrated that the ability to assess the
accuracy of the eyewitnesses' testimony was beyond the ken of the
average juror, or that the psychological factors about which Dr.
Penrod proposed to testify were relevant to this case,
"particularly where . . . defendant was known to one of the
eyewitnesses [Bierd] after months of regular encounters." 
Further, the People argued that this case was distinguishable
from the one-eyewitness identification cases relied upon by
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Nos. 139, 140
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defendant.  Here, there were two eyewitnesses who corroborated
each other, and there was additional corroborative evidence,
including defendant's refusal to participate in a lineup unless
he and all the fillers wore masks.  At the time, the People
argued, defendant would have had no way to know that masks were
involved in the robbery unless he was there when it took place.  
Immediately before jury selection, defendant made
additional arguments on the motion.  According to defendant, the
expert testimony would be "important" because the use of a gun
made the robbery stressful, and Dr. Penrod would explain that
high levels of stress could impair an identification. 
Additionally, Dr. Penrod would address "weapon focus," and the
concept that there is "not necessarily a correlation between
certainty and accuracy" of an eyewitness identification, although
the "general public . . . thinks there is."  Finally, defendant
argued that Dr. Penrod's testimony on the subject of "unconscious
transference" was relevant because the eyewitnesses claimed that
they had seen defendant in the neighborhood before, and thus it
was possible that they identified defendant because "he's the
only one in the lineup that they've seen in the neighborhood." 
The trial judge denied the motion, finding that "this
is not an area in which an expert is at all helpful" because the
proposed testimony involved matters of 
"common sense and life experience . . . [T]he jury
knows the longer you look at something the easier it is
to remember . . . , just like they know if a person is
wearing a disguise, it makes it hard to recognize them. 
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Nos. 139, 140
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They don't need an expert to testify to these things."
He ruled that defendant should address the reliability of
eyewitness identification during cross-examination and in
summation.
After the People rested, defendant renewed his motion,
reiterating his position that Dr. Penrod's testimony regarding
unconscious transference was relevant because "statistics show
that people are more likely to identify someone they've seen
before."  The court denied the application, again deciding that
the issue was a matter of common sense.
C.  Appellate Division
The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed defendant's
judgment of conviction and sentence because "the facts . . . 
[were] sufficiently distinct from those of [LeGrand] that . . .
Supreme Court did not err in denying the defendant's request to
adduce expert testimony regarding the reliability of eyewitness
identification" (People v Allen, 53 AD3d 582, 584 [2d Dept
2008]).  The court emphasized defendant's confirmation that he
used the nicknames given to the police by Bierd, and his
knowledge that the robbers wore masks.  Further, the court
pointed out, two eyewitnesses identified defendant from a
photographic array the day of the crime and then again, four
months later, in a lineup; and one of the eyewitnesses had seen
and heard defendant in the neighborhood regularly over a period
of six months before the robbery.  Defendant appealed, and a
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Nos. 139, 140
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Judge of this Court granted his application for leave.
II.
In Lee, we held that expert testimony proffered on the
issue of the reliability of eyewitness identification "is not
admissible per se"; rather, "the decision whether to admit it
rests in the sound discretion of the trial court" (Lee, 96 NY2d
at 160), which should be guided by "whether the proffered expert
testimony would aid a lay jury in reaching a verdict" (id. at 162
[internal quotation marks omitted]).  We also noted that although
"jurors may be familiar from their own experience with factors
relevant to the reliability of eyewitness observation and
identification, it cannot be said that psychological studies
regarding the accuracy of identification are within the ken of
the typical juror" (id.).  And finally, we recognized that
because "expert testimony of this nature may involve scientific
theories and techniques, a trial court may need to determine
whether [it] is generally accepted by the relevant scientific
community" (id.).
Applying these principles to the facts in Lee, we
"[could] not say that the trial court's denial of defendant's
motion [to introduce expert testimony regarding the reliability
of eyewitness identification] constituted an abuse of discretion"
(id. at 163).  In reaching this conclusion, we observed that the
trial judge entertained the defendant's motion during the
People's case-in-chief, and so "was in a position to weigh the
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Nos. 139, 140
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request against other relevant factors, such as the centrality of
the identification issue and the existence of corroborating
evidence" (id.).  The crime in Lee was a carjacking, and the
defendant was discovered driving the stolen vehicle, which
corroborated the victim's identification of him as the carjacker.
Next came our decision in Young.  There we reiterated
several of the key points we made in Lee: that the decision
whether to admit or exclude expert evidence on the reliability of
eyewitness identification lies within the bounds of the trial
court's discretion; in the exercise of this discretion, the trial
court should consider whether "the expert [could] tell the jury
something significant that jurors would not ordinarily be
expected to know already" (Young, 7 NY3d at 45); and scientific
studies of factors affecting the reliability of eyewitness
identification are beyond the ken of the typical juror.
Calling the question a "close" one on the facts in
Young (id. at 42), we nonetheless decided there was no abuse of
discretion.  Young was a home invasion case, and we commented
that if the trial had "turned entirely on an uncorroborated
eyewitness identification, it might well have been an abuse of
discretion to deny the jury the benefit of [the expert's]
opinions" (id. at 45).  As it was, though, two of the defendant's
female acquaintances were found to possess property stolen during
the home invasion; neither of them could have been the robber
(who was a male); and one of them said she got the property from
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Nos. 139, 140
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the defendant.  Under these circumstances, we considered it
"reasonable" for the trial judge to decide that the eyewitness's
identification "was quite unlikely to be mistaken, and that [the
expert's] testimony would be an unnecessary distraction for the
jury" (id. at 46).
We most recently considered the admissibility of expert
testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification in
LeGrand.  There, we held that 
"where [a] case turns on the accuracy of eyewitness
identification and there is little or no corroborating
evidence connecting the defendant to the crime, it is
an abuse of discretion for a trial court to exclude
expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness
identifications if that testimony is (1) relevant to
the witness's identification of defendant, (2) based on
principles that are generally accepted within the
relevant scientific community, (3) proffered by a
qualified expert and (4) on a topic beyond the ken of
the average juror" (LeGrand, 8 NY3d at 452).   
In LeGrand -- unlike Lee and Young -- there was no
evidence other than eyewitness identifications to tie the
defendant into the crime, the stabbing death of a livery cab
driver in 1991.  Further, the identifications on which the
People's case depended were made nearly seven years after the
crime, and the defendant was not convicted until 2002.  In light
of these facts, we decided that the trial judge abused his
discretion when he disallowed expert testimony on those three
factors where the defense expert's testimony at the Frye hearing
"confirm[ed] that the principles upon which [he] based his
conclusions [were] generally accepted by social scientists and
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Nos. 139, 140
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psychologists working in the field" (id. at 458): the correlation
between confidence and accuracy, the effect of postevent
information, and confidence malleability.
Finally, we noted in LeGrand that 
"[a]lthough the trend has been of late to more
liberally admit such [expert] testimony -- as
recognized in Lee and Young -- the admissibility of
such evidence would also depend upon the existence of
sufficient corroborating evidence to link defendant to
the crime.  In the event that sufficient corroborating
evidence is found to exist, an exercise of discretion
excluding eyewitness expert testimony would not be
fatal to a jury verdict conviction of defendant" (id.
at 459).
Applying our precedents in this area to the facts in
Abney and Allen, we reach different answers to the question of
whether the trial judge abused his discretion.  While it was
reasonable for the trial judge to deny defendant's pretrial
motion in Abney as premature and overly broad, another outcome
was called for when defendant renewed the motion at the close of
the People's direct case.  By that point, it was clear that there
was no evidence other than Farhana's identification to connect
defendant to the crime, and she did not describe him as
possessing any unusual or distinctive features or physical
characteristics.
Defendant asked to elicit testimony from Dr. Fulero,
who is a qualified expert on the subject of eyewitness
identification research findings, about the following topics: the
effect of event stress, exposure time, event violence and weapon
focus, cross-racial identification, lineup instructions, double
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Nos. 139, 140
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blind lineups, and witness confidence.  All but two of these
subjects -- lineup instructions and doubleblind lineups -- seem
relevant to Farhana's identification of defendant, given the
particular circumstances of the case.  And as we stated in
LeGrand, the principles related to witness confidence upon which
Dr. Fulero proposed to testify are generally accepted within the
relevant scientific community.  They are also counterintuitve,
which places them beyond the ken of the average juror.
Accordingly, the trial judge in Abney abused his
discretion when he did not allow Dr. Fulero to testify on the
subject of witness confidence.  As for the remaining relevant
proposed areas of expert testimony -- the effect of event stress,
exposure time, event violence and weapon focus, and cross-racial
identification -- the trial judge should have conducted a Frye
hearing before making a decision on admissibility.
Finally, we do not consider the trial judge's error in
Abney to have been harmless.  While defendant's muddled alibi
evidence was no doubt unhelpful to his cause with the jury, it is
not overwhelmingly inculpatory either.  And, of course, it is
possible that defendant would not have pursued an alibi defense
in the first place if Dr. Fulero had testified. 
Contrariwise, we consider Allen to be more akin to Lee
and Young.  We are unwilling to second-guess the trial judge's
exercise of discretion in Allen because the case did not depend
exclusively on Bierd's eyewitness testimony -- i.e., Allen is not
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Nos. 139, 140
- 22 -
a "case [that] turns on the accuracy of eyewitness identification
[where] there is little or no corroborating evidence connecting
the defendant to the crime" (LeGrand, 8 NY3d at 452). 
Critically, Almonte independently identified defendant as the
knife-wielding robber who searched him and stood nearby
throughout the course of the robbery.  And defendant was not a
stranger to either Bierd or Almonte.
Defendants' remaining arguments, to the extent
preserved, are without merit.
Accordingly, in People v Abney, the order of the
Appellate Division should be reversed and a new trial ordered; in
People v Allen, the order of the Appellate Division should be
affirmed.
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Case No. 139:
Order reversed and a new trial ordered.  Opinion by Judge Read.
Judges Ciparick, Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.  Chief
Judge Lippman took no part.
Case No. 140:
Order affirmed.  Opinion by Judge Read.  Judges Ciparick,
Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones concur.  Chief Judge Lippman
took no part.
Decided October 27, 2009