United States v. Thomas Michael Kavanagh

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

A criminal defendant seeks reversal of his bank robbery conviction on the ground that the district court refused to charge in accordance with Barber v. United States, 442 F.2d 517, 528 (3d Cir. 1971), that eyewitnesses’ identification testimony should be “received with caution and scrutinized with care”. We join eight other circuits in approving use of the Barber charge, or variations of it, in the discretion of the district court, in cases where the evidence suggests a possible misidentification. Under the circumstances here, however, we conclude that the failure to give…