Court Opinion

ID: 9640214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:01:16.098749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:28.388166
License: Public Domain

STOVER, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
Though I respectfully acknowledge the current position of the Court of Criminal Appeals,1 which the majority in this case purports to follow, I write nonetheless to express my disagreement with the conclusion that the trial court erred in excluding the testimony of expert witness, Dr. Kenneth Deffenbacher, on the issue of eyewitness reliability. In my view, the credibility of the lay witnesses (N.R. and B.M.) is a matter which should be left to the jury. The jury remains the “exclusive judge of the facts proved, and of the weight to be given to the testimo-ny_” See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.04 (Vernon 1979).
Appellant’s use of Dr. Deffenbacher’s testimony was merely an attempt to attack the credibility of the two eyewitnesses through the use of expert testimony. That attack is properly left to defense counsel in his cross-examination of each witness. During cross examination, the appellant touched on the issue of the length of time that elapsed between the eyewitnesses’ initial encounter with the suspect and their subsequent identification of him. The appellant also elicited on cross-examination the fact that the three identification formats — the photo spread, the photograph of the hunters, and the lineup— all had one individual in common, that being the defendant. Once given that information, the jury was capable of understanding the import of it. The testimony of an expert witness is not required to develop the prejudicial effect of that circumstance and the effect it might have had on the reliability of the identification. Furthermore, the notion that an unfamiliar face may be more easily forgotten than that of a familiar one, or the notion that a person is able to remember having seen a particular face more readily than where he encountered that face, are likewise not concepts on which a jury needs expert opinion or assistance. In addition, the idea that a highly confident person could just as easily be inaccurate and a person of low confidence be correct in identification of *134a perpetrator, is likewise not a theory which the jury needs assistance in understanding. In that sense, I do not agree that the expert testimony in this case is relevant — a position that has not won favor with the Court of Criminal Appeals.
I further disagree with the majority in their conclusion that Dr. Deffenbacher’s testimony satisfies the second prong of the test set out in Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 573 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). His testimony in this case does not prove the scientific reliability of the offered scientific evidence by clear and convincing evidence; specifically, the proffered testimony does not show the “potential rate of error of the technique.” Id. at 573. In speaking of the potential rate of error in eyewitness identification, Dr. Deffenbaeher stated it was “difficult to predict precisely just how much increase in error there might be.” In answer to the State’s question regarding the quantifying of the probability, Dr. Deffenbacher’s response is telling in both its generality and ambiguity.
Q. [The State] And you know all the circumstances surrounding the person’s seeing photographs before the later identification and you know all of those circumstances surrounding the other identification. Knowing all of that, though, and from your studies you still don’t know — you still can’t quantify a probability that the person is influenced by photo bias to where they are misidentifying someone?
A. [Dr. Deffenbaeher] What studies— what studies have shown is that the probability of a misidentification increases. That’s a general statement. Usually what’s been shown is — in a particular study the probability of errors increase in a statistical significant sense, which means it is not just chance kind of increases. So we can’t — in general we can’t — it would be difficult to predict precisely just how much increase in error there might be.
One thing we do know, though, studies have shown, is the effects of photo bias are less likely to be a problem when the viewing circumstances are quite optimal. It’s definitely more of a problem when the viewing circumstances are not so good. So we do know that. And so we know generally — we know about the direction of the effect and it’s going to be more sizable in the case where the viewing circumstances weren’t good, less sizable in a case where they are more reasonably optimal.
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Q. [State] Are you telling this Judge, then, that based on what you have reviewed, you are able to tell the Judge and the jury later a probability, a number probability that these witnesses have been affected by photo bias?
A. [Dr. Deffenbaeher] I can’t give a number. I can give an ordinal kind of judgment.
Q. Because what you are talking about, your ordinal type of judgment is just based on the studies that you have done before. There’s no way you can give a probability or percentage chance that they could be correct based on this information, can you?
A. No, that’s the job of the jury. But they need maybe the information to take into account because they are the ones that have to make that probabilistic judgment.
Based on Dr. Deffenbacher’s own explanation, I do not find the evidence to be scientifically reliable under Tex.R.CRIM. Evid. 702. The trial judge did not abuse his discretion in excluding the expert testimony, and point of error three should be overruled.2

. See Jordan v. State, 928 S.W.2d 550 (Tex.Crim. App.1996); Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568 (Tex. Crim.App. 1992).

. I concur only with the majority’s disposition of point of error one in finding the evidence to be legally sufficient to sustain the conviction.