By JAY REEVES

Associated Press Writer

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Eric Rudolph’s lawyers are questioning a black man’s claim that he saw Rudolph near the scene of a deadly abortion clinic blast, citing research into the shakiness of “cross-racial identifications.”

In court papers filed Wednesday, Rudolph’s attorneys asked a judge to allow testimony from City University of New York psychology professor Steven Penrod, who has testified in other cases about the difficulty witnesses have in accurately identifying people of other races. Rudolph is white.

Prosecutors say Penrod’s testimony is unscientific and could “confuse, mislead and potentially usurp the jury.”

Rudolph is scheduled to go on trial late next month in the 1998 clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously wounded a nurse. He could get the death penalty.

Rudolph is also charged in the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that killed a woman and wounded dozens, and in other blasts in Atlanta in 1997. He was captured in North Carolina in 2003 after a manhunt of more than five years.

His attorneys want to use Penrod to challenge the testimony of a black man identified in court papers only as “J.H.”

The witness, who was attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham at the time, claimed to have seen Rudolph within a block of the clinic when the bomb went off.

The defense said the importance of J.H.’s testimony to the prosecution’s case “cannot be overestimated.”

“J.H. is the only witness who will be able to place Mr. Rudolph anywhere near abortion clinic close to the time of the explosion,” the defense argued.

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