Commonwealth v. Walker

OPINION

Justice TODD.

In this appeal by allowance we address the question of whether a trial court may, in its discretion, permit expert testimony in the area of eyewitness identification, and, in doing so, we reconsider our current decisional law which absolutely bans such expert testimony. For the reasons that follow, we hold that, in Pennsylvania, the admission of expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification is no longer per se impermissible, and join the vast majority of jurisdictions which leave the admissibility of such expert testimony to the discretion of the trial court. Thus,…