Commonwealth v. Gomes
Annotate this CaseAfter a jury trial, Defendant was found guilty of mayhem and breaking and entering. Before trial, Defendant moved to suppress certain pretrial identifications. The trial judge denied the motion. Defendant appealed, arguing that the judge erred by refusing to give Defendant’s proffered instruction regarding eyewitness identification that would have instructed the jury on various scientific principles regarding eyewitness identification and human memory. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the convictions but included in this opinion a provisional jury instruction regarding eyewitness identification evidence to be used before a model instruction would be set forth, holding (1) the judge did not abuse his discretion by declining to instruct the jury about the scientific principles where Defendant offered no expert testimony, scholarly articles, or treatises that established that the principles were so generally accepted that a jury instruction stating those principles would be appropriate; but (2) there are principles regarding eyewitness identification that are so generally accepted that juries in the future should be instructed regarding these principles.
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