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"I will never forget that face, or will I?"

By Marks & Katz, LLC

 Bill of Rights. (From the public domain.) People misidentify other people all the time. People startled by the trauma of a burglary or other felony in progress will tend to misidentify all the more.  As Maryland's highest court recognized last week, depending on the person doing the identification, cross-racial identification can increase the risk of misidentification all the more. Dion G. Tucker v. Maryland, __ Md. _ (Feb. 20, 2009). In this instance, the Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of Tucker, because the trial court added the following erroneous final sentence to the jury instruction on cross-racial identification:  "In this case the identifying witness is of a different race than the Defendant. In the experience of many, it is more difficult to identify members of a different race than members of their own race...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on February 23, 2009 (boomark / email).