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Monday, August 29, 2011

Criminal justice policy in the news

Today there are several stories in the news about criminal justice policy--specifically, police reliance on eye-witness testimony


Police Lineups Start to Face Fact: Eyes Can Lie

New York Times - Erica Goode - John Schwartz - 10 hours ago
... conduct a central technique of police work, criminal justice experts say. ... when the policy was instituted, a major departure from the days when the ...


  • Most police departments use old lineup methods Boston Globe - Erica Goode - John Schwartz - 4 hours ago
    ... conduct a central technique of police work, criminal justice experts say. ... when the policy was instituted, a major departure from the days when the ...




  • If you sit back and you think about how unreliable these techniques are, you wonder what can possibly be done to assure that we don't get the wrong people. There are literally thousands of innocent people picked out by witnesses and victims who they actually think committed the crimes. We clearly cannot rely on DNA and forensics since this evdience is rarely found in criminal cases, and often it is not reliable due to tampering (like in North Carolina).

    Don't think it can happen to you? Think about that time someone came up to you and told you they saw someone who looked just like you. That's happened to me at least three times.

    Scary thought!

    2 comments:

    1. North Carolina mandates the way lineups are done in this state. It hasn't been that difficult to do. We have always done our best to do them without coercing the witnesses into picking someone anyway.
      I have never like lineups personally. I had a victim pick out a guy and state that he was 100% sure that the guy was the suspect in his home invasion. I found out that the guy was in Florida, when the crime was committed. We later caught the true suspect.
      I have also had victims and witnesses tell me that a car was green, and it was actually red. We had a store owner pick out the wrong suspect recently as well.
      If the victim or suspect picks out the wrong suspect in the lineup, it also hurts your case, when you go to court.
      Lineups are just tricky.

      ReplyDelete
    2. I have had similar experiences with lineups. Despite a lengthy preamble explaining the procedure, that hair styles change, that skin tone may not be accurately reflected by the black and white photograph, etc., I have had numerous instances where the victim/witness has picked out the correct individual but offered a 60% or 70% confidence rate because of the aforementioned factors. Then the DA's Office gets nervous about prosecuting a suspect on a 60% identification.

      Another issue is people starting to locate suspects' photos via various online sources... Facebook, MySpace, Sheriff sites, etc. As if this problem is not enough, the local media has become quite "efficient" at obtaining surveillance footage of potential suspects and plastering them all of the television. The end result is "influenced" information with which to build our cases.

      ReplyDelete