Smith v. State

This case involves an attempted robbery in which a cross-racial identification 1 was made by the victim of two defen*470dants, Jason Mack and James Smith, as the perpetrators. The trial court denied defense counsel’s request to argue the difficulties of cross-racial identification in closing argument and to have the jury instructed concerning the cross-racial nature of the identifications. Based upon the circumstances of this case, we hold that the trial court erred in prohibiting defense counsel from commenting on cross-racial identification in their closing arguments and reverse the defendants’…