Now, the state's case rests, of course, to a very significant extent on the identification of the accused person made by the complainant in this matter, Courtney Amanda Melville when she picked out photograph number 2 in the third photoboard, if you are satisfied that that's what occurred. As I said, all matters of evidence are matters for you not me. The significance of that is, members of the jury, that where the state's case rests on evidence of identification of an accused person by a state witness, there is a special need for caution before convicting.
The reason for that is that in the past, such evidence has, on occasion, been found to be mistaken later on. That's in the experience of the law and, of course, evidence of that kind very often is given by people who are completely honest witnesses who are simply mistaken but because they are honest witnesses their evidence tends to be accepted by juries. A statement, 'That's the person I saw' or, 'Who did something to me', can never, of course, be more than an expression of opinion, in other words, 'In my opinion that is the person who I saw and who did something to me.'
With that in mind, members of the jury, it's necessary that I warn you that whatever degree of confidence is exhibited in an identification it is necessary for you to scrutinise the evidence of identification with great care before acting on it. Many times, of course, such evidence can be entirely accurate and therefore reliable. The difficulty is to say when that is the case.
There are rules, of course, of commonsense which any of us would be able to work up if necessary in relation to the issue of identification including, was the person identified known to the identifier? What opportunity for accurate observation existed? What was the light like? How much time existed for the observation? What aspect of the person was presented to the identifier and how much of the body of the person was presented? Were movements observed?
At what distance did the observation occur? Were there intervening or other distracting movements? Were there any particular factors which might have affected the situation? Were there any apparent or obvious peculiarities of the person identified which might have assisted? Was the witness under a state of stress and, if so, what effect would that have been likely to have had? Some people, of course, under stress have increased powers of observation, others would have their powers of observation lessened. What is likely to have happened here?
Did the witness have reason to try and observe and remember the person? What was the description given? When was the description given? How was the identification made? So matters of that kind are all to be taken into account, members of the jury. Some of them, of course, would be of less relevance than others in this particular case.