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“EYE SEE YOU”: HOW CRIMINAL
DEFENDANTS HAVE UTILIZED THE NERD
DEFENSE TO INFLUENCE JURORS’
PERCEPTIONS
Sarah Merry*For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—
deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—
persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold
fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts
to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the
comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.^1Eyeglasses are “one of the most important artifacts used in
the courtroom.”^2 In 2012, a defendant’s use of eyeglasses at trial
went to appeal in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in
Harris v. United States.^3 “[A]t the heart of” the appeal was
whether the defendant’s rights were prejudiced by the Superior
Court’s issuing a change-of-appearance instruction,^4 prompted by
- J.D. Candidate, Brooklyn Law School, 2014; B.S., Santa Clara University,
- I would like to thank my parents for their continued support and
encouragement. I would also like to offer a special thanks to Professor
Kathleen Darvil for her thoughtful suggestions and research advice, and to
the staff of the Journal of Law and Policy for their careful edits and
insightful comments.
(^1) President John F. Kennedy, Yale University Commencement Address 2
(June 11, 1962) (transcript available in the National Archives), available at
http://research.archives.gov/description/193922.
(^2) LAWRENCE J. SMITH & LORETTA A. MALANDRO, COURTROOM
COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES § 1.21, at 42 (1985).
(^3) See Harris v. United States, No. 08-CF-1405, at 4–6 (D.C. Cir. 2012),
available at http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/moj-08-cf-1405.pdf.
(^4) A change-of-appearance instruction is given to a jury in circumstances
in which a defendant has changed his or her appearance after the commission