In People v. Lee, 96 NY2d 157, 162 [2001] the trial court apparently accepted that there existed valid expert testimony on identification that was relevant to a determination of the accuracy of the identification in that case. Procedurally, the trial court considered the application during the trial. The Court of Appeals found that to be significant because it provided the trial court with a firsthand account of the identification testimony and the evidence that corroborated that identification. This permitted the trial court to "weigh" the application against such relevant factors as "the centrality of the identification issue and the existence of corroborating evidence." (People v. Lee, 96 NY2d at 163.) Having done so, the trial court's denial of the application for the expert identification testimony was held to have been within its sound discretion. In Lee, the Court anticipated that "expert testimony of this nature may involve novel scientific theories and techniques, in which case a trial court may need to determine whether the proffered expert testimony is generally accepted by the relevant scientific community." (People v. Lee, 96 NY2d at 162.) In Lee, the Court held that expert testimony concerning the reliability of an identification should be treated in the same manner as any other opinion evidence offered by experts. The Court rejected the contention that expert testimony in this field was somehow suspect or should be subjected to special preconditions not applicable to other expert opinion testimony. The appropriate test, as described in Lee, is to "weigh the request against other relevant factors, such as the centrality of the identification issue and the existence of corroborating evidence." (Id. at 163.)