This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

A young white man (Victim) was walking and listening to music on wired earbuds connected to an iPhone in his pocket. It was dark, and the nearest street light was some distance away. The victim noticed he was being followed by two young black men wearing hoodies pulled low to obscure their faces. Because the two were closing quickly on Victim, he started to cross the street to put some distance between himself and them. The two black men stopped Victim in the middle of the street, one in front of him and one behind him. The man in front asked Victim if he could use his phone. The victim said he did not have a phone and was listening to an iPod instead. The man in front pulled up his t-shirt, displaying what appeared to Victim to be the woodgrain handle of a .38 pistol tucked into his waistband, and said to Victim: 'Give me what you have or I'll shoot you.' He then took the iPhone and wired earbuds from Victim while the man behind Victim reached around and took the e-cigarette from Victim's hand and the nicotine cartridge from his pocket. The two then ran a short way west on Capitol and turned south onto Lafayette. The entire encounter took less than one minute. The victim pursued and saw them cut through a residential yard to head east through an alley a half block south. The victim ran past the alley down to High Street and asked to borrow a passing couple's phone to report the robbery. Only seconds had passed since the crime occurred. The victim's 911 call was received at 7:49 p.m. He said he had been robbed by two young black men, one in a black hoodie and one in a red hoodie. This description went out on the police radio at 7:50 p.m. Officers Fisher and Schuler were only two or three blocks away and responded to the Victim's location within seconds. Sergeant Lenart responded to the scene in a separate vehicle and quickly learned that the Victim had last seen the two perpetrators running east in the alley between Lafayette and Cherry. Sergeant Lenart saw D and another young black man walking east across Cherry at the point where the alley crossed the street. Both were wearing t-shirts, and neither was wearing a hoodie. Sergeant Lenart stopped his vehicle, hailed the two, and asked if he could talk to them. D stopped immediately and, after taking a couple of steps suggesting he may run, the other young man stopped as well. It was 7:52 p.m. D was standing next to a bush when Sergeant Lenart approached. Sergeant Lenart did not see D throw anything on the ground, he soon found an iPhone connected to wired earbuds lying on the ground six or seven feet from D on the other side of the bush. D was not carrying a gun and no gun was found in his vicinity. D appeared to be sweating and breathing heavily as if he had been running. Sergeant Lenart requested that Victim be brought to the location to see if he could identify them. At 7:54 p.m., the Victim was driven a short distance to his location. On the way, Victim was told that he would see two men who may have been involved in the robbery and would be asked if he recognized them. He was admonished that these two were found in the area and generally matched the description he had given, but not to identify them as the perpetrators unless he was certain. D and the other young man were handcuffed and seated on the curb. Officer Fisher shone the spotlight on them. Without leaving the vehicle, the Victim identified the two men as the ones who had robbed him and D, specifically, as the man who had displayed the pistol and threatened to shoot him. The victim noted D was not wearing the red hoodie he had been wearing during the robbery. The victim identified the iPhone as his and was able to enable it with his fingerprint in lieu of a password. D and the other man were arrested and removed from the scene. Sergeant Lenart and Officer Greenwalt began to search back from the location and found the Victim's e-cigarette and the vial of nicotine. Both were broken and scattered. Further along the alley, the officers found a driver's license belonging to the young man who had been arrested with D. Just off the alley near Cherry Street, the officers found two hoodies, one black and one red. Several officers looked for but were unable to find, the pistol or anything that Victim may have mistaken for a pistol. D's counsel served notice that he would call Dr. James Lampinen to testify at trial as an expert about the factors that can impact the reliability of eyewitness identifications generally. P filed a motion to exclude this testimony on the ground that such expert testimony should not be admitted under State v. Lawhorn. D's counsel served notice that he would call Dr. James Lampinen to testify at trial as an expert about the factors that can impact the reliability of eyewitness identifications generally. P filed a motion to exclude this testimony on the ground that such expert testimony should not be admitted under State v. Lawhorn, 762 S.W.2d 820 (Mo. banc 1988), State v. Whitmill, 780 S.W.2d 45 (Mo. banc 1989), and subsequent cases. The court granted P's motion. Both parties and the court agreed D could make a proffer of Dr. Lampinen's testimony on the Friday before the Monday when the trial would begin. The victim testified he was 'one hundred percent [certain' D was the one who threatened and robbed him. D's counsel sought to have Dr. Lampinen testify. The state renewed its objection based on Lawhorn and Whitmill, and the court sustained that objection and excluded the expert testimony. D was found guilty of robbery in the first degree. D appeals solely on the exclusion of Dr. Lampinen's testimony. The Supreme Court of Missouri took the case.

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