State v. Henderson and the New Model Jury Charges - New Jersey ...

a-8-08.opn.html
broader approach, we decline to order pretrial hearings in every case, as
opposed to cases in which there is some evidence of suggestiveness. We also
reject a bright-line rule that would require suppression of reliable evidence any
time a law enforcement officer missteps.
Second, the court system should develop enhanced jury charges on
eyewitness identification for trial judges to use. We anticipate that identification
evidence will continue to be admitted in the vast majority of cases. To help
jurors weigh that evidence, they must be told about relevant factors and their
effect on reliability. To that end, we have asked the Criminal Practice
Committee and the Committee on Model Criminal Jury Charges to draft
proposed revisions to the current model charge on eyewitness identification and
address various system and estimator variables. With the use of more focused
jury charges on those issues, there will be less need to call expert witnesses at
trial. Trial courts will still have discretion to admit expert testimony when
warranted.
The factors that both judges and juries will consider are not etched in stone.
We expect that the scientific research underlying them will continue to evolve,
as it has in the more than thirty years since Manson. For the same reason,
police departments are not prevented from improving their practices as we
learn more about variables that affect memory. New approaches, though, must
be based on reliable scientific evidence that experts generally accept.
The changes outlined in this decision are significant because eyewitness
identifications bear directly on guilt or innocence. At stake is the very integrity
of the criminal justice system and the courts’ ability to conduct fair trials.
Ultimately, we believe that the framework described below will both protect the
rights of defendants, by minimizing the risk of misidentification, and enable the
State to introduce vital evidence.
The revised principles in this decision will apply purely prospectively
except for defendant Larry Henderson and defendant Cecilia Chen, the subject
of a companion case also decided today. See State v. Chen, ___ N.J. ___
(2011). We remand defendant Henderson’s case for a new pretrial hearing
consistent with this opinion to determine the admissibility of the eyewitness
evidence introduced at his trial.
http://njlaw.rutgers.edu/collections/courts/supreme/a-8-08.opn.html[4/15/2013 6:04:23 PM]