It's no surprise that the witness turned out to be wrong and that Bryan was acquitted, an expert on eyewitness identification said yesterday. Other factors include the stress and fright the witness is experiencing, she said. Loftus said experts do not know how often people are convicted based on faulty eyewitness identifications.
Experts are unsure why.
Laughlin is white and Bryan is African-American. We have found that even people free of prejudice have more problems with cross-racial identification. Two years ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that in cases like Bryan's, in which the eyewitness identification is the only prosecution evidence, trial judges must warn juries that people of one race may have trouble accurately identifying someone of another race. The court cited sociological studies dating back 40 years in support of the unanimous opinion. Pennsylvania has no such requirement.