Court Opinion

ID: 9589406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:44:15.953331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:49.470252
License: Public Domain

HUNSTEIN, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent to Divisions 2 (b) and 3 of the majority opinion.
1. In Division 2 (b), the majority finds no error in certain comments made by the prosecutor during closing argument. After characterizing the defense’s argument as a claim that the evidence against Manley was “all lies” and the result of a conspiracy, the prosecutor argued:
Clay Bryant, over, what, 30 years in law enforcement. He’s willing to throw it all away ... Georgia state trooper, Hogansville police chief, DA investigator, public defender investigator, he’s willing to throw it all away to frame Charles Travis Manley. Gary Rothwell, 26 years with the GBI, willing to throw it all away to frame Charles Travis Manley. Me, 25 years in the practice of law, willing to . . . throw it all away to frame Charles Travis Manley.
The majority correctly notes that it is not improper for counsel to urge the jury to make a deduction regarding the veracity of a witness from proven facts. See Shirley v. State, 245 Ga. 616 (1) (266 SE2d 218) (1980). Here, however, the facts in evidence as to the work *848histories of Bryant and Rothwell7 could not form the basis of such a deduction, as an impressive resume does not necessarily bear any relation to a propensity for truthfulness. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged, 1967), p. 589 (defining “deduce” as “to draw (a conclusion) necessarily from given premises”). The prosecutor’s argument urged the jury to find these witnesses to be truthful based on unrelated facts, as well as facts not in evidence, constituting a personal opinion as to the witnesses’ veracity and thus improper bolstering. Given the critical nature of these witnesses’ testimony to the State’s case, I cannot conclude that it is highly probable that the bolstering of their credibility did not contribute to the verdict. See Bolden v. State, 272 Ga. 1 (525 SE2d 690) (2000). Accordingly, reversal is required on this basis.
2. In Division 3, the majority holds that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in denying Manley’s request to call an expert witness on eyewitness identification. This 1987 case was “cold” in 2005 when investigator Bryant was assigned to it, as the evidence gathered to that point had apparently been deemed insufficient for an arrest or indictment. Baker was unable to make an identification from the photo lineup he was shown in 1991, yet chose Manley’s picture from the same lineup in 2005; Boynton was unable to make an identification from the photo array she was shown in 1989, yet chose Manley’s picture from a lineup using the same photos in 2005. Although Wentz had not seen a photo lineup prior to 2005, he identified without hesitation a man he had at most encountered briefly more than 17 years earlier.
The majority states that Manley sought to introduce expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification “simply [to show] that the identifications occurred so many years after the crime had been committed that they should be considered suspect,” a matter that it considers to be within the ken of the average juror. Pretermitting whether the majority’s characterization of that particular issue as “plain and easily understood” is correct, the proffered testimony of the expert indicated that he would have testified not only as to the effect of the passage of time on the accuracy of an identification, but also regarding the effect of various photo lineup procedures on identification accuracy and the only “modest” association between the confidence of a witness in making an identification and its accuracy. See Johnson v. State, 272 Ga. 254, 256, n. 2 (526 SE2d 549) (2000) (appropriate to admit expert testimony involving counterin-tuitive issue such as absence of expected correlation between wit*849ness’s expression of confidence and actual accuracy). This testimony would have provided significant assistance to the jury in assessing the reliability of the identifications, and the trial court abused its discretion in excluding it. Because the identifications were a crucial component of the State’s case, it follows that the exclusion of the expert testimony was so prejudicial as to require reversal.
Decided January 26, 2009.
Brian Steel, for appellant.
Peter J. Skandalakis, District Attorney, Raymond C. Mayer, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Christopher R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

 I note that no facts were in evidence as to the length of time the prosecutor had been practicing law.