Court Rejects Challenge To In-Court Identification and Affirms Exclusion of Expert Witness Testimony on Eye Witnesses Identifications

State v. Mosley, Minn.S.Ct., 9/24/2014.  Following a bench trial, the trial judge convicted Mr. Mosley of three counts of first degree premeditated murder, and then imposed three consecutive life sentences without possibility of release.  On appeal, Mr. Mosley raises two questions about eye witness identifications.

The first question is about an in court identification by one of the state’s witnesses.  This witness saw a black male wearing a sweatshirt with a grey hood and stripes over the shoulders riding a bicycle in front of the house where the homicides occurred.  She witnessed this and some additional actions by this same black male just shortly before the shooting deaths.  Only during her trial testimony, however, did she state that the person she had seen was Mr. Mosley; no one had conducted an identification procedure before trial.  Justice Dietzen, writing for the entire court, rejected Mr. Mosley’s due process challenge to this in court identification because it had not been the product of any state action.  Perry v. New Hampshire, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 716 (2012). 

Mr. Mosley also said on appeal that the in court identification violated Rule 403 of the Rules of Evidence because it lacked reliability and unfairly prejudiced him.  Because Mr. Mosley had not made this precise objection at trial – he made only the due process objection – the court reviewed this claimed error under harmless error analysis.  Because admission of most all evidence is a discretionary call by the trial judge, Justice Dietzen easily enough concludes that there had been no abuse of that discretion and thus there was no error.  Reliability of identification testimony, the Justice says, goes to the weight of the identification evidence and not its reliability.

The second question is about admission of expert testimony on eyewitness identification.  In a rather nostalgic trip down memory lane – back to  State v. Helterbridle, 301 N.W.2d 545 (Minn. 1980), the court concludes that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to admit such testimony.  Helterbridle, confidently told everyone – before the onslaught of wrongful convictions started coming to light, most of which were based on faulty witness identifications – that such safe guards as cross examination, jury instructions and arguments of counsel are more than adequate to prevent the improper use of eye witness identifications.  Most incongruous in this conclusion is the double standard utilized for eye witness experts and for “rape myth” experts in rape cases where consent is the defense.  Whereas in rape cases where consent is the defense the court has been satisfied with allowing experts to testify generally to so called “rape myths,” for eye witness identifications, Justice Dietzen says that the expert’s testimony must relate to the particular circumstances of the identification under attack.  What this means is that the defense must be prepared to present a proffer that is specific to the case on trial.