Commonwealth v. Gomes

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
470 Mass. 352 (2015)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

For a scientific principle regarding eyewitness identification to be included in a model jury instruction, it must be so generally accepted that there is a near consensus on it in the relevant scientific community. Courts will prospectively update jury instructions to reflect such principles to ensure jurors have adequate guidance in evaluating eyewitness testimony.

Facts:

On September 10, 2011, the defendant, who appeared intoxicated, confronted an employee, Jordan Wilson, inside a convenience store.
Shortly after, the defendant approached Zachary Sevigny's vehicle in the store's well-lit parking lot, argued with him, and then slashed Sevigny's face with a box cutter.
The attack was witnessed in part by Sevigny's friend, Gerald Mortensen, and another customer, Lindsay Holtzman.
Five days later, Wilson identified the defendant's photograph from a police database of 975 images, stating he was '110 per cent positive.'
That same day, police showed an eight-photo array to Mortensen and Sevigny; Mortensen made no identification, and Sevigny said the attacker was not in the array but noted the defendant's photo had a similar chin.
On September 18, Sevigny, Mortensen, and Holtzman coincidentally saw the defendant at a different gas station and all independently recognized him as the attacker.
Sevigny called the police and followed the car the defendant entered, leading to the defendant's arrest after Sevigny and Mortensen identified him in a showup identification.

Procedural Posture:

The defendant was charged in Superior Court with mayhem and related offenses.
Before trial, the defendant filed motions to suppress pretrial identifications, which the trial court judge denied.
During the trial, the defendant requested a jury instruction based on modern scientific principles of eyewitness identification, which the judge denied in favor of the existing standard instruction.
The jury convicted the defendant on all counts.
The defendant appealed the convictions directly to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, arguing the trial judge erred by refusing his requested jury instruction.

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Issue:

Does a trial judge abuse their discretion by declining to give a defendant's requested jury instruction detailing scientific principles of eyewitness identification, when the defendant has not provided expert testimony or scholarly literature to establish that those principles are generally accepted?

Opinions:

Majority - Gants, C.J.

No. A trial judge does not abuse their discretion by refusing to give a scientifically-detailed eyewitness identification instruction when the proponent fails to provide a record, through expert testimony or scholarly articles, showing the principles are 'so generally accepted' as to be appropriate for a jury instruction. In this case, the defendant did not provide the judge with any such materials, so the judge's decision to use the existing, approved 'Rodriguez' instruction was not an error. However, the court took the opportunity to revisit its jurisprudence, recognizing that scientific research has revealed principles about eyewitness identification that are not common knowledge and are often counterintuitive. Citing a comprehensive Study Group Report, the court concluded that several principles—such as the malleability of memory, the weak correlation between witness confidence and accuracy, and the negative effect of stress—have achieved a near consensus in the scientific community. Therefore, the court prospectively adopted a new provisional model jury instruction incorporating these principles to be used in all future trials to better guide juries in their evaluation of eyewitness evidence.

Analysis:

This landmark decision prospectively overhauls Massachusetts law on eyewitness identification by replacing a decades-old, common-sense-based jury instruction with a new, scientifically-informed model instruction. While affirming the conviction under the old standard, the court established that certain scientific principles regarding memory and identification are now beyond legitimate dispute and must be taught to juries. This shifts the burden of educating the jury from the parties (who may or may not call an expert) to the court itself. The ruling aims to mitigate the leading cause of wrongful convictions—eyewitness misidentification—by ensuring that jurors evaluate such evidence with a more sophisticated and empirically-grounded understanding of its potential fallibility.

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