Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit Defense Blog : Wrongful Conviction Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Andrew M. Hale Law Firm

According to an article in USA Today - they are reporting:

At least five states — Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina and West Virginia — and some major U.S. cities have either revamped or started changing the way law enforcement officials use photographic lineups to identify suspects. Since changing its policy in April, Dallas Police Lt. David Pughes says the department has conducted 1,400 lineups and believes "we're bringing a stronger piece of evidence to court."

"Challenges to lineups were first dismissed as misguided academic exercises, until (law enforcement officials) could see the concrete disasters resulting in exoneration," says Iowa State University psychology professor Gary Wells, an expert on eyewitness identification. Earlier this year, Dallas became the largest police department to stop presenting blocks of mug shots to witnesses. Now, suspects' photographs are presented one at a time by investigators who are not involved in the cases. The new sequential technique is designed to focus witnesses' memories more precisely on who they saw and not allow for potentially faulty comparisons.

But are sequential lineups really better? The National Institute of Justice is not convinced.  According to their research:

So far, research that compares simultaneous and sequential lineups and the use of "blind" administrators has not been conclusive. In a blind lineup, the person who is running the lineup does not know which person the police believe is the likely suspect.

According to an article published by the NIJ:

“At the present time, [when comparing simultaneous and sequential lineup presentations,] there is no definitive sense that one form of lineup presentation is superior to the other,” Roy S. Malpass, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso..

Malpass noted that certain practices typically used in sequential lineups—such as asking witnesses to make a separate decision on each photograph or individual—have not been examined in simultaneous lineups. Thus, it is unclear whether differences in the effectiveness of the two lineup models are due to method of presentation (simultaneous or sequential) or the presence of these other variables.

Jury is still out. But crimes still need to be solved. Best tool police have to do that is still eyewitnesses - whether a psychology professor likes it or not.

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Today the Innocence Project released a new report entitled  Reevaluating Lineups: "Why Witnesses Make Mistakes and How to Reduce the Chance of a Misidentification".  The new report discusses several attempts at reforming lineups, including: 

• Double-blind presentation: photos or lineup members should be presented by an administrator who does not know who the suspect is.

• Lineup composition: “Fillers” (the non-suspects included in a lineup) should resemble the eyewitness’s description of the perpetrator and the suspect should not stand out. Also, a lineup should not contain more than one suspect.

• Witness instructions: The person viewing a lineup should be told that the perpetrator may not be in the lineup and that the investigation will continue regardless of whether an identification is made.

• Confidence statements: At the time of the identification, the eyewitness should provide a statement in her own words indicating her level of confidence in the identification.

• Recording: Identification procedures should be videotaped.

• Sequential presentation (optional): Lineup members are presented one-by-one (by a “blind” administrator) instead of side by side.

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On October 10, 2006, Dr. Gary Wells, Professor of Psychology at Iowa State University, testified as an expert witness for the plaintiff Alejandro Dominguez in his trial against the City of Waukegan. Dr. Wells testified that he is an expert in eyewitness memory and eyewitness identification. He claims that he has published more than anyone in the world on these topics. Dr. Wells testified that it was improper for the Waukegan police to conduct a "show-up" two days after the subject rape, despite the fact that the rape victim said she had seen her attacker before. He opined that the police should have conducted a line-up instead. He also testified that the police should have given a warning that "the offender might or might not be in the line-up" - which was not given. This is the third case that Dr. Wells has been retained by attorney Jon Loevy. Dr. Wells also testified for the plaintiff Michael Evans this summer in his suit against the the City of Chicago and ten former Chicago police officers. (The jury returned a verdict for all of the defendants in that case). Also, in 2005, Dr. Wells testified for plaintiff Steve Manning in his suit against two FBI agents, Robert Buchan and Gary Miller. (The jury awarded Manning $6.6 million in that case, but pending post-trial motions seek to overturn that award).

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