## Facts

- A federal grand jury charged Manuel P. Amaral with robbing a national bank on February 12, 1973; a co-defendant was charged with aiding and abetting and was tried separately.
- Amaral pleaded not guilty and was convicted by a jury.
- The prosecution relied primarily on eyewitness identifications connecting Amaral to the robbery.
- During jury selection, the defense sought expanded voir dire on (a) potential prejudice against Mexican-Americans and (b) jurors’ tendency to overcredit eyewitness identification; the court conducted limited questioning and restricted additional inquiries.
- The defense sought a special instruction directing jurors to treat eyewitness identification testimony with “extreme caution”; the court did not give that instruction.
- The defense challenged certain evidence as irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial.
- The defense requested a separate pretrial hearing concerning the admissibility of out-of-court photographic identification procedures; the request was denied.
- The defense offered an expert to testify about psychological factors affecting eyewitness reliability; the trial court excluded the expert testimony.

## Issues

1. Whether limiting voir dire on potential racial/ethnic prejudice and eyewitness-identification reliability denied Amaral an impartial jury.
2. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by not giving, on its own initiative, a special “extreme caution” instruction regarding eyewitness identifications.
3. Whether the admission of allegedly irrelevant and highly prejudicial evidence required reversal.
4. Whether due process required a separate pretrial hearing on the admissibility of photographic-identification evidence.
5. Whether excluding defense expert testimony on the reliability of eyewitness identification was an abuse of discretion.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The trial court did not abuse its discretion in limiting voir dire; the questioning conducted was sufficient to probe for significant bias.
- The failure to give a special eyewitness-caution instruction sua sponte was not reversible error where standard credibility and burden-of-proof instructions were given and the issue was not properly preserved.
- The challenged evidentiary rulings fell within the trial court’s discretion; any prejudicial effect did not warrant reversal.
- A separate pretrial hearing on photographic identifications was not required absent a showing that the procedure was impermissibly suggestive and likely to produce misidentification.
- Excluding the eyewitness-identification expert was not an abuse of discretion because the proposed testimony largely addressed matters within ordinary juror understanding, risked intruding on the jury’s credibility function, and was viewed as speculative or improperly directed at specific witnesses.

## Legal Principles

- Trial judges have broad discretion over voir dire; limits are upheld if the process is reasonably aimed at seating an impartial jury.
- There is no categorical requirement that a trial court give a special cautionary instruction on eyewitness identification absent a proper request and a record showing reversible or plain error.
- Relevance and unfair-prejudice determinations are committed to the trial court’s discretion and warrant reversal only when the ruling results in substantial unfairness.
- Photographic-identification evidence is evaluated under due process standards focusing on suggestiveness and the likelihood of misidentification; a separate pretrial hearing is not automatic.
- Expert testimony on eyewitness reliability may be excluded in the trial court’s discretion where it does not materially assist the jury beyond common experience or risks usurping the jury’s role in assessing credibility.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld Amaral’s bank-robbery conviction, holding that the trial court acted within its discretion in conducting limited voir dire, declining to give an unsolicited special identification instruction, admitting contested evidence, denying a separate photographic-identification hearing, and excluding expert testimony on eyewitness-identification reliability.


United States v. Amaral, 488 F.2d 1148 (9th Cir. 1973)