Wednesday, December 15, 2004

8th Circuit Upholds Exclusion of Testimony re Eyewitness ID

The Eighth Circuit has published an opinion upholding the trial court's exclusion of the defendant's expert on eyewitness identification in a criminal case. The expert had proposed to testify only on the reliability of eyewitness i.d. in general, not on the specific identifications offered by the prosecution witnesses in the particular case. The panel's opinion also said the court would generally be reluctant to reverse the exclusion of an eyewitness identification for abuse of discretion unless the prosecution's case rested solely on uncorroborated eyewitness testimony, as this one did not. See United States v. Martin, No. 04-1028 (8th Cir. Dec. 14, 2004) (Loken, Beam, & Gruender, JJ.).


posted by pn at 3:18 PM  

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Fed. R. Evid. 702: If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.