Police lineups' flaws spur new approach

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Suspects in traditional lineups are arranged shoulder to shoulder in the same room, and witnesses use a process of elimination to select someone who looks most like the perpetrator, said Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who has researched mistaken identifications for more than 25 years.

Wells and other researchers advocate another approach, the "sequential" lineup, where suspects are brought in one at a time so witnesses can examine each individually.
...
"Psychologically, it's a very different experience," Wells said. "With the it's a relative judgment process that leads to the identification rather than what we're after, which is true recognition."

Mistaken identification--which was a factor in more than 75 percent of the 155 DNA exonerations across the country since 1989, according to the Innocence Project--can be cut in half or more with sequential lineups, Wells said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0502070235feb07,1,6250917.story?coll=chi-news-hed

[merwin]

1. It will also make it much much more difficult to ID the person, as not

many people can hold the complete images of 10 people in their head features and all.

[Rose Siding]

2. But why would the witness need to remember all 10?

If they see the one who did it, won't they recognize them right away?

[merwin]

3. Sometimes it's not that easy.

Let's say someone attacked you. First off, you'll be in shock. Throw on top of that the fact that you're probably more focused on staying alive rather than memorizing the exact details of a person. And on top of all of it is the fact that lineups bring together people with the exact same (or very similar features).

The brain works in funny ways, and I personally think this will make it harder on everyone (except the criminals in question)

[Rose Siding]

4. You may be right

But a pilot study like this still sounds like a good idea to me. It could make it easier on people like Avery who served 18 years -wrongly convicted on the basis of a positive id- or on his guilt ridden accuser. She made a conscious effort during her attack to get a good look at the guy but still got it wrong.

It would be interesting to know how many times mistaken ids are made of stand-ins in lineups under the current system vs the new one.