District Court Permissibly Refused to Appoint Geoffrey Loftus as Expert on Eyewitness Testimony, 7th Circuit Rules

The Seventh Circuit has published an opinion upholding the trial court's refusal to appoint Dr. Geoffrey Loftus as a criminal defendant's expert on eyewitness identification. Dr. Loftus's qualifications were not in question, nor the soundness of his methodology. The trial court concluded, however, that general testimony on the fallibility of eyewitness identification would not aid the trier of fact, and the Seventh Circuit agreed. The appellate panel cited a long line of Seventh Circuit authority holding that exclusion of such testimony is permissible. The panel also noted that the trial court's jury instructions reflected the same key points on eyewitness identification that an expert's testimony would have covered. See United States v. Carter, No. 04-2008 (7th Cir. June 10, 2005) (Manion, Rovner, & Sykes, JJ.).