Opinion ID: 1841963
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Denial of Expert Misidentification Testimony

Text: In his third assignment of error, the defendant claims the trial court erred in refusing to allow expert testimony concerning the causes of misidentification. Specifically, this testimony was to be offered in order to diminish the credibility of eyewitness Wanda Brown. As a general matter, under La.C.E. art. 702, if scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify . . . in the form of an opinion or otherwise. In reviewing an expert's qualifications, the trial judge is vested with wide discretion in determining the competence of an expert witness. Competence of an expert witness is a question of fact to be determined within the sound discretion of the trial judge; h[er] rulings on the qualifications of expert witnesses will not be disturbed in the absence of manifest error. State v. Stucke, 419 So.2d 939, 944 (La.1982)(citing State v. Drew, 360 So.2d 500 (La.1978)). Under Stucke and its progeny, a trial court may exclude expert testimony regarding the reliability of eyewitness identification. Stucke, 419 So.2d at 945; see also State v. Ford, 608 So.2d 1058, 1060-1061 (La.App. 1st Cir.1992); State v. Velez, 588 So.2d 116, 134 (La.App. 3 Cir.1991). Because of the risk that expert testimony on eyewitness identification will have a greater influence on the jury than other evidence presented at trial, and because such evidence presents the danger of `invad[ing] the field of common knowledge, experience, and education of men[ ]' this Court has held that the prejudicial impact of such evidence would substantially outweigh its probative value. Stucke, 419 So.2d at 945 (quoting 3 Am.Jur.2d, Expert and Opinion Evidence, § 21; 100 A.L.R.2d 1421, 92 A.L.R. 1223). In the instant case, the defendant wished to call Dr. John C. Brigham, an expert in eyewitness identification, who would have testified regarding his findings after years of studying the reliability of eyewitness testimony. [7] Specifically, Brigham sought to explain to the jury his findings that, inter alia, intoxication greatly increases the likelihood of false identification, that little correlation exists between the confidence expressed by an eyewitness and the actual reliability of that witness's identification, that the chance of misidentification increases with the length of time between incident and identification, and that facts gathered from secondary sources after observing the event in question tend to skew a witness's perception of that event. While the defendant claims that the particular facts of this case present the rare instance in which the `specialized knowledge' of an expert in the form of opinion evidence would assist the jury in deciding the question of identity, Stucke, 419 So.2d at 951 (Lemmon, J., concurring), with the possible exception of the effect of alcohol on Brown's ability to process the world around her, the proposed expert testimony likely presented an invasion into a reasonable juror's common knowledge. See State v. Ammons, 208 Neb. 797, 305 N.W.2d 812, 814 (1981) (the prejudicial effect of a psychologist's testimony on a witness's identification outweighs its probative value); see also Ford, 608 So.2d at 1061 (expert testimony regarding the fallibility of human perception and memory generally is unnecessary to resolve the issues regarding the reliability of an identification); see generally Elizabeth Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony Civil and Criminal (1997). The trial court thus properly excluded this expert testimony, and defendant's third assignment of error fails to have merit.