People v. Legrand

• Decision Date: 27 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 39.,39.
• Citation: 8 N.Y.3d 449,867 N.E.2d 374
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Nico LeGRAND, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

867 N.E.2d 374

8 N.Y.3d 449

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Nico LeGRAND, Appellant.

No. 39.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 27, 2007.

Center for Appellate Litigation, New York City (Jan Hoth and Robert S. Dean of counsel), for appellant.

Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, New York City (Meredith Boylan and Patrick J. Hynes of counsel), for respondent.

David Loftis, New York City, Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Ezekiel Edwards for Innocence Project, Inc., amicus curiae.

Steven Banks, New York City, Lorca Morello, and Green & Willstatter, White Plains, for Legal Aid Society and others, amici curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JONES, J.

The main issue before us is whether the hearing court erred when it refused to admit expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identifications, which it concluded was based on novel scientific principles, theories or techniques that are not generally accepted by the relevant scientific community.

After a Frye hearing, Supreme Court found that the proposed testimony was relevant to the facts of the case, that defendant's witness was a qualified expert and that the proposed testimony was beyond the ken of the typical juror. However, the court denied defendant's motion to admit expert testimony, ruling that the proposed expert testimony was not generally accepted within the relevant scientific community. For the reasons that follow, we hold that where the case turns on the accuracy of eyewitness identifications and there is little or no corroborating evidence connecting the defendant to the crime, it is an abuse of discretion for a trial court to exclude expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identifications if that testimony is (1) relevant to the witness's identification of defendant, (2) based on principles that are generally accepted within the relevant scientific community, (3) proffered by a qualified expert and (4) on a topic beyond the ken of the average juror. Taking into account that trial courts generally have the power to limit the amount and scope of evidence presented, we nevertheless conclude that, in this case, the court erred when it precluded the testimony of defendant's eyewitness identification expert in its entirety.

Facts and Procedural History

On the morning of June 15, 1991, livery cab driver Joaquin Liriano was stabbed to death on Morningside Drive in Manhattan. Liriano's assailant fled before the police arrived on the scene. Four people witnessed the attack, and within a few days collaborated on a composite sketch of the assailant. Two years later, defendant was identified as a possible suspect in the homicide when an officer who arrested him for an unrelated burglary concluded that he resembled the 1991 composite sketch. However, because the police were unable to find any of the witnesses to the stabbing, the homicide case stalled. The case remained dormant until April 1998 when defendant was again arrested for burglary in the same precinct. Police again concluded that he resembled the composite sketch.

The authorities located the four witnesses who contributed to the composite sketch and one additional witness to the stabbing who was not identified until 1998. One of the witnesses identified defendant as the killer in a photo array and a lineup. Two of the remaining witnesses were shown the photo array, but neither made a positive identification. Specifically, one witness picked out defendant's photo as a "close, if not exact" match. A third witness described defendant's picture as "similar" to that of the assailant. The fourth and fifth witnesses also examined the photo array, but were unable to identify defendant. There was no forensic or other physical evidence connecting defendant to the stabbing.

Defendant was charged with second degree murder in April 1999. The People's case rested solely on identifications made nearly seven years after the crime. In April 2001, during defendant's first trial, three witnesses identified defendant as the perpetrator. However, two of the witnesses had seen defendant's photo array in the district attorney's office the night before they were to testify. Defendant's first trial ended in a mistrial (due to a hung jury) after three days of deliberation.

In June 2001, prior to his second trial, defendant, relying on this Court's decision in People v. Lee, 96 N.Y.2d 157, 726 N.Y.S.2d 361, 750 N.E.2d 63 (2001), moved to introduce at trial the testimony of an expert in order to "educate the jurors as to the weaknesses and dangers inherent in eyewitness testimony and to present them with an appropriate perspective by which to judge such testimony." According to the supporting memorandum of law, the expert would testify as to research findings regarding several factors that may influence the perception and memory of a witness and affect the reliability of eyewitness identifications: in particular, the effect of "weapon focus," the lack of correlation between witness confidence and accuracy of identification, the effect of postevent information on accuracy and confidence malleability.¹ The expert would not, however, opine on the accuracy of any specific eyewitness identification. Moreover, defense counsel's affirmation stated that "[i]f any issues remain unresolved for the court as to the admissibility of such evidence, those issues could be resolved by conducting a Frye hearing prior to trial."

The prosecution opposed the motion on the ground that the theories that the defense wanted to introduce were "highly controversial." Further, the prosecutor argued that in Lee, this Court upheld the lower court's decision to preclude expert testimony addressing the same issues on which defendant's expert would testify here. The prosecutor also argued that cross-examination and/or jury instructions could counter a mistaken identification.

After conducting a Frye hearing, the court precluded the testimony on the ground that the expert's conclusions were not generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. At the second trial, the jury found defendant guilty of second degree murder. Defendant was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of 25 years to life. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed (28 A.D.3d 318, 814 N.Y.S.2d 37 [2006]), and a Judge of this Court granted defendant leave to appeal (7 N.Y.3d 758, 819 N.Y.S.2d 883, 853 N.E.2d 254 [2006]). We now reverse and order a new trial.

Discussion

Over the past few decades, criminal defendants have increasingly called on psychologists to offer expert opinion testimony regarding the objective and subjective factors that influence the reliability of eyewitness identifications. They argue that misidentifications may lead to false convictions and that in certain cases, experts may offer the jury much needed guidance regarding how to assess the reliability of an identification. Typically, such expert testimony is based on research findings from experiments that test how accurately experiment subjects (i.e., "witnesses") recall faces and other details under various conditions. According to one commentator, the overall research findings show that

"witnesses often make mistakes, that they tend to make more mistakes in cross-racial identifications as well as when the events involve violence, that errors are easily introduced by misleading questions asked shortly after the witness has viewed the simulated happening, and that the professed confidence of the subjects in their identifications bears no consistent relation to the accuracy of these recognitions" (1 McCormick, Evidence § 206, at 880 [6th ed. 2006]).

Although there may be risks associated with allowing an expert to apply research findings from experiments on the reliability of eyewitness identifications to real-life identifications, these findings — produced through sound, generally accepted experimentation techniques and theories, published in scholarly journals and subjected to peer review — have over the years gained acceptance within the scientific community. On this point, then Judge Kaye previously stated that

"[t]o the extent that judicial acceptance is indicative of general scientific acceptance, the emerging trend today is to find expert psychological testimony on eyewitness identification sufficiently reliable to be admitted, and the vast majority of academic commentators have urged its acceptance . . . . [P]sychological research data is by now abundant, and the findings based upon it concerning cognitive factors that may affect identification are quite uniform and well documented" (People v. Mooney, 76 N.Y.2d 827, 829-830, 560 N.Y.S.2d 115, 559 N.E.2d 1274 [1990, Kaye, J., dissenting] [citations omitted]).

However, "in recognition that expert testimony of this nature may involve novel scientific theories and techniques, a trial court may need to determine whether the proffered expert testimony is generally accepted by the relevant scientific community" (Lee, 96 N.Y.2d at 162, 726 N.Y.S.2d 361, 750 N.E.2d 63, citing People v. Wesley, 83 N.Y.2d 417, 423-429, 611 N.Y.S.2d 97, 633 N.E.2d 451 [1994]).

Eleven years after Mooney, we reexamined the admissibility of expert testimony on the issue of reliability of eyewitness identifications in Lee. In that case, defendant sought to introduce expert testimony on how factors such as the duration of an encounter, stress involved in the encounter and the passage of time between the crime and identification affect memory and eyewitness identification. The defendant also sought to have the expert explain the lack of correlation between a witness's confidence and the accuracy of the identification. The hearing court summarily rejected the eyewitness testimony as inadmissible. We held that in so rejecting the expert testimony, the court failed to exercise its discretion; "while such expert testimony is not inadmissible per se, the decision whether to admit it rests in the sound discretion of the trial court" (Lee,...