Opinion ID: 2592762
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: ¶ 2 In February 2006, Clopten was convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting of Tony Fuailemaa outside a Salt Lake City nightclub. At trial, Clopten maintained that someone elsea man named Freddie White was responsible for the shooting. The testimony of several individuals who witnessed the murder and who identified Clopten as the perpetrator countered this assertion. In the absence of strong physical or forensic evidence against Clopten, the State leaned heavily on the eyewitness testimony to secure a conviction. ¶ 3 As part of his defense, Clopten sought to introduce the testimony of Dr. David Dodd, an expert on eyewitness identification. Clopten intended to elicit testimony from Dr. Dodd regarding various factors that can affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, including cross-racial identification, the impact of violence and stress during an event, the tendency to focus on a weapon rather than an individual's facial features, and the suggestive nature of certain identification procedures used by police. ¶ 4 At Clopten's first trial, the district court initially allowed the expert testimony, but later reversed itself and ruled that Dr. Dodd could not testify. The district court changed course again and decided to permit the testimony, but this ruling was nullified when, in May 2005, a mistrial was declared because of a conflict of interest unrelated to the issue before us. At the second trial, the court excluded the expert testimony. The trial court reasoned that the testimony was unnecessary since potential problems with eyewitness identification could be explained using a jury instruction, as has been the common practice in Utah since this court's decision in State v. Long, 721 P.2d 483 (Utah 1986). The trial court concluded that the jury instruction (hereinafter a  Long instruction) does an adequate job and that Dr. Dodd's testimony would be superfluous and would only confuse the issue. ¶ 5 Clopten appealed the trial court's ruling. The court of appeals held that trial judges are afforded significant deference to exclude expert testimony on this topic and upheld the conviction. State v. Clopten, 2008 UT App 205, ¶ 19-21, 186 P.3d 1004. However, the court also cited numerous studies concluding that jury instructions and cross-examinations do not adequately address the vagaries of eyewitness identification. Id. ¶ 19. Judge Thorne wrote a separate concurrence, in which he urged this court to revisit the boundaries of trial court discretion in excluding expert testimony on the subject. Id. ¶ 32 (Thorne, J., concurring). We granted certiorari review, and we have jurisdiction under Utah Code section 78A-3-102(5) (2008).