Court Opinion

ID: 9719358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:49:47.44822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:06.502088
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Presiding Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur fully with Divisions 1 and 3 of the majority opinion. However, because I believe that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification, I must respectfully dissent to Division 2.
Our Supreme Court has held that in circumstances
[w]here eyewitness identification of the defendant is a key element of the State’s case and there is no substantial corroboration of that identification by other evidence, trial courts may not exclude expert testimony without carefully weighing whether the evidence would assist the jury in assessing the reliability of eyewitness testimony and whether expert eyewitness testimony is the only effective way to reveal any weakness in an eyewitness identification.
*282(Citations, punctuation and footnote omitted.) Johnson v. State, 272 Ga. 254, 257 (1) (526 SE2d 549) (2000). I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that there was substantial corroboration of the eyewitness identification in this case, and further, weighing the factors set forth by the Supreme Court of Georgia in Johnson, the trial court abused its discretion in excluding the defendant’s expert witness.
Much of the “corroborating” evidence cited by the majority was related to the identification by the victim/eyewitness, such as Frazier’s clothing, height, hairstyle and the like. This self-corroborating evidence is not what I believe can be characterized as substantial corroboration of the eyewitness identification, especially given that key identification characteristics testified to by the witness were rebutted, including Frazier’s height. The witness described her robbers as between 5'3" and 5'7", and Frazier is six feet tall. The only other corroborating evidence was an air rifle found near the scene of the crime that police never linked to Frazier, and Frazier’s proximity to the crime. While certainly this is some corroborating evidence, it is far from substantial, and thus the trial court had to weigh whether the testimony of the defendant’s expert would assist the jury in determining the eyewitness’s reliability and whether it was the only effective way to reveal any weaknesses in the witness’s identification, as mandated by Johnson.
Frazier’s only defense was that he was mistakenly identified. Jurors give great significance and credibility to eyewitness testimony. There are probably few images that resonate with a jury as much as that of the witness pointing her finger at the defendant and loudly proclaiming, “He did it!” It was critical to his defense that Frazier be given an effective means to exploit the weaknesses in the victim’s identification. Further, if evidence is helpful to the jury, it should be admitted. It would never be error to admit expert testimony explaining the inherent unreliability of eyewitness testimony, which, while counterintuitive and contrary to common wisdom, is scientific fact. Johnson, supra at 256. The admission of such expert testimony does not undermine the jury’s ability to determine the truth; it is simply one more piece of evidence it will use in its process of deliberation.
As our Supreme Court recognized in Brodes v. State, 279 Ga. 435 (614 SE2d 766) (2005), “[wjhen identification is an essential issue at trial, appropriate guidelines focusing the jury’s attention on how to analyze and consider the factual issues with regard to the reliability of a witness’s identification of a defendant as the perpetrator are critical.” Id. at 442. The Johnson court anticipated circumstances in which a trial court’s exclusion of such expert evidence could constitute an abuse of discretion, and set forth the evidence in considerable *283detail — in addition to the eyewitness victim’s testimony, the State had stills from an ATM video of the crime, another eyewitness, and a similar transaction in which the victim identified a particular type of handgun which was later found in the defendant’s car — to explain why there was no abuse of discretion there.
Decided July 16, 2010
Mark J. Nathan, for appellant.
Larry Chisolm, District Attorney, Julayaun M. Waters, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
While I acknowledge the trial court’s wide latitude to determine whether to admit or exclude evidence, an abuse of discretion standard, while deferential, is not toothless and does not require the appellate courts to rubber-stamp these decisions. There is some point at which the decision to exclude the only effective means to challenge the State’s only evidence constitutes an abuse of discretion. Because that was the situation here, the trial court abused its discretion in failing to allow the witness to testify. Accordingly, I must respectfully dissent in part.