Jeanne Dunne, a bank teller, provided a description of a bank robber "moments" following the robbery. The robber was identified as an African American with dark skin, a wide nose, and medium build. Dunne was unable to select defendant Johannes Hines from a book of photographs. Working with a police artist, she constructed a sketch of the robbery and selected Hines from 8 photographs of men who "resembled the robber." She stated that Hines "looked like him" but remained unsure. Hines offered the expert testimony of Dr. Saul Kassin, a psychologist studying human perception at Williams College. Kassin's testimony was offered to document the "decreased accuracy of cross-racial identification, the effect of time on memory...the absence of any correlation between the amount of confidence expressed by an eyewitness in his or her memory, and the accuracy of that witness identification, the suggestiveness of subtle aspects of the identification process, such as the darkness of a particular photo as compared to others in the array, (and) the fact that the eyewitness knows there is a suspect in the mix, the transference phenomenon by which a witness may believe that a face looks familiar but is unable to say whether her familiarity comes from seeing a previous mug shot or from the robbery" and other related issues. The government expert questioned whether Kassin's studies of college students could be applied to "a real life setting." Should Kassin be qualified as an expert and be permitted to testify? See United States v. Hines, 55 F. Supp. 2d 2 (D., Mass. 1999).

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Answer In the case of United States v Hines the admissibility of Dr Saul Kassins expert testimony needs to be determined by the court Dr Kassins testi... View the full answer