State v. Hubbard

In State v. Hubbard, 2002 UT 45, 22, 48 P.3d 953, a man convicted of aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and aggravated assault argued that the trial court should have allowed an expert witness to testify regarding the fallibility of eyewitness identification. The defendant also argued that the trial court erred in admitting a witness's pretrial photo array identification of defendant, which included the statement "I'm positive." The Court concluded that the decision to "allow proffered expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification testimony is a matter best left to the trial court's discretion because of the trial court's superior position to judge the advisability of allowing such testimony." The Court also held that the pretrial identification procedures used by the officers in the case were not impermissibly suggestive and that admitting the eyewitness testimony, which included the certainty statement, was not violative of the Due Process Clause. In State v. Hubbard, "the trial court gave a cautionary Long instruction (State v. Long) instead of permitting expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification." Id. Reviewing the trial court's exercise of discretion, the Court noted the following: "We have not adopted a per se rule of inadmissibility of expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification. Instead, we recognize that whether to allow proffered expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification testimony is a matter best left to the trial court's discretion because of the trial court's superior position to judge the advisability of allowing such testimony". Id.