YOUNGSTOWN — Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court has granted permission for the attorney in the Lavontae E. Knight aggravated murder case to hire a psychology professor to provide expert testimony on witness identification.

Knight, 23, and George Gutierres, 29, are charged in the Oct. 25, 2018, shooting death of Joshua Donatelli, 26, at Donatelli’s Imperial Street home.

Defense attorney David Betras argued during a hearing last week that because the case against Knight appears to hinge on the witness identification of his client by one person, it’s necessary for jurors to know what the research says about the reliability of certain kinds of identifications.

Betras said one of the areas he would like expert witness Margaret Bull Kovera to discuss is cross-race identification. Cross-race identification refers to a witness identifying a suspect of a different race.

A 2012 brief filed by the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the Seattle University School of Law in a criminal case before the state of Washington Supreme Court says, “Numerous studies and exonerations have shown that cross-racial misidentification is a leading cause of false convictions.”

It says a task force report “shows that eyewitness identifications are particularly unreliable when the eyewitness is identifying a person of another race.”

The brief urged the court to “direct criminal courts to provide cautionary jury instruction regarding this unreliable category of evidence,” adding there is “widespread unawareness of this phenomenon among jurors.”

Kovera regularly serves as an expert witness on the reliability of eyewitness identification, according to a web page about her work. Her 40-page curriculum vitae also lists millions of dollars worth of research she has done and books and papers she has written on a variety of issues involving criminal law.

She is a psychology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York.

Durkin ruled Wednesday he would allow Betras to employ an expert on witness identification, but said he would rule later on whether the expert can testify at the trial, now set for Feb. 10. The trial had been set to begin today, but it was postponed to give defense attorneys more time to prepare.

Prosecutors opposed the hiring of the expert witness. Dawn Cantalamessa, assistant county prosecutor, wrote in a filing the costs to the public of Kovera’s services are “excessive and unnecessary.”

Cantalamessa cited case law indicating that “The mere possibility that the appointment of defense experts might provide assistance … is not sufficient to compel the court” to allow such an expert.

Betras was appointed as Knight’s legal counsel because Knight cannot pay for his own lawyer or expert witness. Knight and his lawyer, therefore, need the judge’s permission before hiring an expert.

Knight was charged in the case after the witness identified him as being involved in the killing. Cantalamessa told Durkin at the hearing the witness identified Knight by seeing him on television in an unrelated matter. The witness directly told Cantalamessa that information, Cantalamessa said.

Knight is charged with aggravated murder, murder, aggravated robbery attempted cocaine possession and having weapons under disability.

Knight and Gutierres are scheduled to be tried together, but Betras also is challenging whether that would be unfair to Knight.