Eyewitness Identification

Eyewitness identification is a critical tool for apprehending and prosecuting criminals. Yet, eyewitness misidentification is widely recognized as one of the leading causes of wrongful conviction, accounting for more wrongful convictions than all other causes combined. Groundbreaking research on eyewitness memory as well as increasing attention to the problems in the cases of wrongfully convicted individuals, has brought the fallibility of eyewitness memory to the fore.

Eyewitness Identification CoverIn Eyewitness Identification: A Policy Review (pdf), The Justice Project outlines recommendations for policy improvements that will enable law enforcement to extract the most reliable evidence from eyewitnesses for use in a criminal investigation. The publication also includes the latest scientific research, pertinent case studies, a model policy, and examples of jurisdictions where eyewitness identification statutes have been enacted.

Since 1989, DNA evidence has been used to exonerate well over 200 individuals who were wrongfully convicted. Of those, approximately 75 percent were convicted on evidence that included inaccurate and faulty eyewitness identifications. In some cases, these innocent individuals were misidentified by more than one eyewitness.

Because eyewitness evidence, much like scientific evidence, is susceptible to contamination The Justice Project offers best practices to enhance the reliability of eyewitness identifications and thus the quality of evidence relied upon in criminal trials.

The Justice Project’s Recommendations for
Improving Eyewitness Identification Procedures

  • Use cautionary instructions to reduce pressure on eyewitnesses to choose a suspect when the culprit may not be in the lineup.


  • Choose fillers, or non-suspects, effectively to allow authorities to judge the reliability of an eyewitness.


  • Document the identification. Often, a witness’s initial confidence in an identification is low and provisional, but reinforcing statements and behaviors from authorities can exaggerate that certainty by the time the witness testifies at trial. Documenting a witness’s “certainty statement” prior to such feedback helps the jury assess eyewitness evidence appropriately.


  • Use “double blind” administration in which the suspect is not known to the administrator. Double-blind administration prevents officials from giving inadvertent clues to eyewitness that indicate which person in the lineup is the police suspect.


  • Present lineup members one at a time rather than all at once. Sequential lineups enhance accuracy by reducing the tendency for “comparison shopping” in favor of a more direct assessment of whether the lineup members match the witness’s memory of the culprit.

Related Studies:

Office of the Attorney General, Wisconsin Model Policy and Procedures for Eyewitness Identification, 2005

Gary Wells, Eyewitness Identification Procedures: Recommendations for Lineups and Photospreads, 1998

Eyewitness Identification Resource List

Related Cases:

Anthony Porter
Anthony PorterIn September 1998, after spending 16 years on Illinois’ death row for a crime he did not commit, Anthony Porter had exhausted all of his appeals and came within two days of being executed. Wrongfully imprisoned for the shooting deaths of two teenagers, Porter was convicted on the basis of the eyewitness identification testimony of William Taylor. Taylor was first questioned by police at the scene of the shootings and said he did not see the perpetrator. In later questioning at the station, he claimed he saw Porter run by after shots were fired. After 17 more hours of questioning, Taylor said he saw Porter shoot the two victims. In December 1998, however, Taylor recanted his testimony, and the real perpetrator confessed a month later. In February 1999, Porter was released, and the murder charges were officially dropped against him the next month. Read about Anthony Porter

Kirk Bloodsworth
Kirk BloodsworthIn June of 1993, Kirk Bloodsworth’s case became the first capital conviction in the United States to be overturned as a result of DNA testing. Misidentified by five different eyewitnesses for the rape and murder of young Dawn Hamilton, Bloodsworth, now a Program Officer for The Justice Project, served almost nine years in prison, including two on death row, for a crime he did not commit. On September 5, 2003, Bloodsworth heard the news he had been waiting to hear for 20 years: the state of Maryland finally charged the true perpetrator with the crime after matching DNA evidence with information from state and federal databases. Read about Kirk Bloodsworth

 

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