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MISTAKEN EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION:
THE PROBLEM
In over two thirds of the first
138 postconviction DNA exonerations, mistaken eyewitness
identification played a major part in the wrongful conviction.
Modern technology is proving what scientists, psychologists,
and legal scholars have noted for years: eyewitness
identification is often faulty and is the major cause of
wrongful convictions. Identifications are even more
problematic when they are based on observations made under
stress or in less than ideal conditions(e.g. darkness, from a
distance).
According to a 1999 National Institute of
Justice report, Postconviction DNA Testing: Recommendations for
Handling Requests, over 75,000 people a year become
criminal defendants based on eyewitness identification. The
simultaneous photographic or live (in person) line-up, where
witnesses view all of the suspects (or their pictures) at the
same time, is a primary means by which law enforcement
officials secure these eyewitness identifications.
Unfortunately, this process of identification, the method used
most frequently in the DNA exoneration cases, is also a
procedure scientifically proven to produce unreliable,
erroneous results.
Cross-racial identifications have
been shown to be especially unreliable. Studies indicate that
people who have had little or no contact with those of another
race are significantly less capable of distinguishing
subtleties in facial characteristics of those of a different
race during a lineup procedure.
Further complicating
matters is the administration of identification procedures by
an investigating officer who knows that the suspect is in the
lineup. This already subjective procedure is then in danger of
being tainted by verbal or visual cues given to the
identifying witness, whether consciously or by
accident.
SUGGESTED
REMEDIES
There are simple and effective
policies to help reduce the number of mistaken eyewitness
identifications.
Eyewitness identification scientists,
scholars, and experts have long endorsed sequential double
blind lineups as a way to reduce mistaken eyewitness
identifications. In a sequential double blind lineup
procedure, witnesses view lineup participants or photographs
one at a time, under the administration of a neutral third
party who does not know the identity of the suspect.
In
simultaneous lineups, witnesses compare individual
participants, choosing one from the group who looks most like
the person they remember seeing. Sequential lineups limit this
tendency to compare ÷ encouraging the witnesses to examine
each person in the lineup or photograph against the image in
their mind of the true perpetrator. If the administrator of
the lineup does not know who the suspect is, there is little
risk of influencing witnesses.
Studies also show that,
while sequential double blind lineup procedures can reduce the
number of innocent people wrongly identified, they barely
effect the accurate identification of the guilty.
Based
on the results of a 1996 study of the first 28 DNA
exonerations, Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science,
the Justice Department issued recommendations for changing
lineup procedures. Drawing upon a quarter-century of
scientific research, the report, Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law
Enforcement, listed sequential double blind lineups as a
way to increase the accuracy of eyewitness identification
procedures.
Practice and policy changes that should be
adopted by investigating agencies to help prevent mistaken
eyewitness identification include:
Sequential presentation, as opposed to the usual
simultaneous presentation method, should be used, thereby
preventing relative judgements and forcing witnesses to
truly examine their own identifications.
All stages
of the identification process - lineup, photograph,
composite, etc. - should be videotaped.
Lineup and
photographic array procedures should be administered by an
independent identification examiner. The suspect should not
be known to the examiner to ensure that the witness is not
influenced or steered toward an
identification.
Witnesses should be informed before
any identification process that the actual perpetrator may
not be in the lineup or that the perpetrator's picture may
not be included in the photographic array.
Show-up
identification procedures should be avoided except in the
rare circumstance that the suspect is apprehended in the
immediate vicinity and within a very short amount of time of
the crime.
Witnesses should be asked to rate their
certainty at every instance of identification.
Police
and prosecutors should be trained with regard to the risks
of providing corroborating details or cues that may
influence a witness.
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TYPE OF PRE-TRIAL I.D. PROCEDURE USED (First
82 Cases)
Number of
incidences by procedure
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