New Ruling Delays Hockey Coach Murder Case
Friday’s Utah Supreme Court decision essentially mandating expert testimony about the pitfalls of eyewitness identification has had an immediate impact.
A January murder trial for Eugene Christopher Wright was canceled this week because eyewitness testimony is a crucial element of the state’s case and the defense needs time to find an expert.
Wright, 34, is accused of fatally shooting hockey coach Kenneth Dolezsar, 50, outside a Sandy Village Inn restaurant on Nov. 15, 2007.
Is there something wrong here? It has been two full years since this murder took place and still no trial. Is anybody supervising the court system that allows this kind of inaction on such important criminal cases? Can someone please explain?
During a preliminary hearing last year, Lee Carlson testified he was sitting in his car in the restaurant parking lot when he observed Dolezsar talking to a man he later identified as Wright.
Moments later, Carlson said, Wright pulled a gun and shot Dolezsar.
The only other evidence presented at the preliminary hearing was that a box of bullets found at Wright’s condo matched shell casings found at the shooting scene.
Police have said the two men were working together on a business deal.
Prior to Friday’s court ruling, trial judges routinely banned experts in the science of eyewitness testimony and instead warned jurors about eyewitness fallibility by giving a jury instruction.
Judges now will be expected to allow such witnesses so they can explain that eyewitnesses are prone to identifying the wrong person as the perpetrator of a crime, particularly when the person is of a different race.
In addition, “accuracy is significantly affected by factors such as the amount of time the culprit was in view, lighting conditions, use of a disguise, distinctiveness of the culprit’s appearance and the presence of a weapon or other distractions,” according to the ruling.
The ruling overturned the murder conviction of Deon Lomax Clopten, 34, for the Dec. 1, 2002, fatal shooting of Tony Fuailemaa, 27, outside Club X-Scape in Salt Lake City.
Clopten maintained a man named Freddie White was responsible for the shooting and he hired an expert to testify about the potential problems with eyewitness identification.
But the trial judge refused to allow the expert to testify and instead gave a jury instruction, which had been the common practice of courts for two decades, the ruling said.
Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Alicia Cook said Wednesday she was unaware of any other current cases affected by the eyewitness ruling.
“But we will be seeing a lot more of them,” Cook predicted, “and that will be an obvious expense to the county.”
