Court Opinion

ID: 9473112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:19:23.314833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:19.326691
License: Public Domain

DUMBAULD, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides that “although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed ... by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”
In excluding defendant’s proffer of an expert witness regarding the unreliability of eyewitness identification testimony (a weakness known at least since Hugo Mun-sterberg’s experiments at Harvard and ordinarily presented adequately to the jury by argument of counsel), the District Judge did not invoke Rule 403 eo numero or place on the record any “extensively articulated ... extensive explication” thereunder.1
However, under part V of Judge Becker’s opinion (which is truly a minor magnum opus of jurisprudential virtuosity) the District Court upon remand remains free to do so without preclusion by our present decision of its exercise of discretion under Rule 403. I therefore concur in the disposition made of the case.
I agree with the Court’s opinion that there can be cases where expert opinion of this type may be useful. But with respect to the case at bar it seems plain to me that any error by the District Judge was harmless. A dozen witnesses, who had spent from 5 to 45 minutes in negotiations with the defendant while he “conned” them with his fraudulent scheme, identified him. This case did not involve a momentary glimpse of a bank robber at the teller’s window or a rape perpetrated under a ski mask. It would be unfortunate if his conviction and the time spent at his trial were to go down the drain because of an academic error regarding the intellectual foundations for judicial acceptance of novel scientific disciplines.

. U.S. v. Long, 574 F.2d 761, 770 (3d Cir.1978).