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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Utah Supreme Court has vacated the murder conviction of a man for the shooting death of another man outside a Salt Lake City nightclub and ordered a new trial.
Friday's ruling overturned the conviction of 34-year-old Deon Lomax Clopten for the December 2002 shooting of 27-year-old Tony Fuailemaa outside Club X-Scape.
The high court ruled the trial court should not have excluded expert testimony about the reliability of eyewitnesses.
According to the ruling, Clopten maintained a man named Freddie White was responsible for the shooting and hired an expert to testify about the potential problems with eyewitness identification.
But a judge refused to allow the expert to testify.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
