## Facts

- Samuel Adam Lawson was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated attempted murder, and robbery arising from a nighttime shooting of a couple in a camper-trailer at a campsite.
- The surviving victim initially reported she did not know who shot her and had not seen the shooter’s face; her account changed over time after repeated police interviews.
- The victim repeatedly failed to identify Lawson in photo lineups and at times stated she could not see the shooter.
- About one month before trial, police showed the victim a single photograph of Lawson (a suggestive procedure), and she later observed him at a pretrial conference.
- After those events, the victim identified Lawson from a photo lineup she had previously been unable to use to identify him and testified at trial that she was “positive.”
- In a consolidated case, Stanley Dale James, Jr. was convicted of robbery-related offenses largely on identifications by two grocery-store employees after police employed suggestive procedures.
- In both cases, the Court of Appeals admitted the identifications under the reliability test from State v. Classen, despite recognizing undue suggestiveness.

## Issues

1. Whether the Classen framework governing admissibility of eyewitness identification evidence remained sound in light of modern scientific research on perception and memory.
2. What evidentiary framework under the Oregon Evidence Code should govern admissibility of eyewitness identification testimony when suggestive procedures or other reliability concerns are shown.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court reoriented eyewitness-identification admissibility away from the Classen reliability test and toward analysis under the Oregon Evidence Code.
- The court adopted a burden-shifting approach: the proponent must show relevance; once the opponent identifies suggestiveness or other factors that may compromise reliability, the proponent must satisfy OEC 403.
- In Lawson, the court held the identification evidence was improperly admitted and remanded for further proceedings.
- In James, the court concluded the identifications were admissible under the revised evidentiary framework.

## Legal Principles

- Eyewitness identification evidence is governed primarily by the Oregon Evidence Code, including OEC 401 (relevance) and OEC 403 (probative value vs. dangers such as unfair prejudice, confusion, or misleading the jury).
- After the proponent establishes relevance, the opponent may raise “system variables” (police-controlled procedures such as lineup construction, instructions, and feedback) and “estimator variables” (conditions such as lighting, stress, weapon focus, and cross-racial identification) bearing on reliability.
- If reliability concerns are raised, the proponent bears the burden to show the identification’s probative value is not substantially outweighed by OEC 403 dangers, evaluated in light of scientific understanding of memory and suggestion.
- Witness confidence, especially when shaped by suggestive procedures, is not a reliable indicator of accuracy and may heighten the risk that a jury will overvalue weak identifications.
- Repeated, compounding suggestive procedures can reduce probative value by distorting memory and increasing the likelihood of misidentification, requiring exclusion when OEC 403 is not met.

## Conclusion

The court replaced Oregon’s prior Classen approach with an evidence-code framework that requires trial judges to assess contested eyewitness identifications for relevance and, when reliability concerns are shown, to exclude the evidence unless the proponent proves under OEC 403 that its probative value is not substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice, confusion, or misleading the jury.


State v. Lawson, 352 Or. 724 (Or. 2012)