For example, a one-witness eye-witness ID case. If I’m a juror, and from exoneration studies I know eyewitness identification testimony to be the single least reliable form of evidence, there is nothing about my requiring some corroboration in some other evidentiary form before I find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that should make me challengeable for cause.

My skepticism about certain forms of evidence does not mean I cannot follow the law, which does not insist that I believe anything at all. It just means that proof beyond a reasonable doubt means something slightly different to me than to others. If Garza and Robinson say otherwise, they are wrongly decided, period. (Wrongly decided cases aren’t exactly aberrational in Texas.)

The law does not require medical or scientific evidence to support a conviction. Rodriguez v. State, 819 S.W.2d 871 (Tex.Crim.App. 1991)

Prospective jurors are challengeable for cause if they require a particular type of evidence the law does not require to convict. Garza v. State, 18 S.W.3d 813 (Tex.App. – Fort Worth 2000, pet. ref’d.); Robinson v. State, 985 S.W.2d 584 (Tex.App. – Texarkana 1998 pet. ref’d.)

The one-witness questions go hand in hand with this. Castillo v. State,913 S.W.2d 529 (Tex.Crim.App. 1995); Lee v. State 206 S.W.3d 620 (Tex.Crim.App. 2006).

The question has been clarified, limited, and accepted in its current, most common form by our courts of appeals. There is nothing tricky or unfair about it.

I don’t like this notion that the average citizen is too stupid not to fall for simple question. That’s a tad too elitist of a notion for a defense attorney, no?

Why? Why isn’t this scenario the same as having a juror who would require DNA evidence to convict someone? Is that person qualified to be a juror as well?