Smith v. State

I join in Judge Eyler’s well written majority opinion only in part. I agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to instruct the jury on the difficulties of cross-racial identification for the reasons stated by Judge Eyler.

I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that the trial court acted within its discretion in refusing to allow appellant to argue in his summation that they should consider the difficulty of cross-racial identification in assessing the credibility of an eyewitness. I differ from the majority on this second issue because of…