Judge urges update on cross-racial identifications

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted February 20, 2024 11:11 AM

Reviewing the growing body of scholarship on the unreliability of cross-racial eyewitness identifications, Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan urged the committee on pattern instructions for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to revise its instruction for eyewitness testimony “to allow juries to consider, in appropriate cases, that the witness and the person identified are of different races.” Jordan added his plea when concurring in a decision that affirmed Jonathan Daniels’ conviction and 15-year prison sentence for a …

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