9.2: WITNESS ID OF A SUSPECT – PHOTO ID OF A SUSPECT – PHOTO LINEUPS AND LIVE LINEUPS

According to Gehl and Plecas (2017), beyond taking a statement, one of the most common forms of obtaining information from a witness is the practice of having witnesses identify a suspect through the viewing of photographs or photo lineups. This kind of after the fact identification of a suspect will be subjected to scrutiny when it is presented in court. Strict protocols must be followed to demonstrate that the process was conducted in a fair and unbiased fashion. Under no circumstances would an investigator ever present the witness with only a single photograph or a single lineup suspect and ask if this is the suspect. Additionally, under no circumstances should an investigator ever state that the suspect is one of the persons in the lineup. In the practice of presenting photo lineups, the photos are arranged in a series of eight pictures or more that are permanently mounted into a series of numbered windows of a special photo lineup file folder.

The suspect’s photograph is one of the eight pictures and the remaining seven photos are called “distractor photos.” To be fair, these distractor photos need to be reasonably similar to the suspect photo in terms of gender, age, race, head hair, facial hair, and glasses. When the photo lineup is presented to the witness, there should be instruction by the investigator that the suspect of the investigation may or may not be in this photo lineup (i.e., “Please look at all the photos carefully and only select the number of a photo if you are certain it is the suspect you saw at the time of the event”).

Like photo lineups, live persons may be used to conduct a suspect identification or a suspect in custody. These live lineups are more difficult to create because they require the cooperation of the suspect and if the suspect does something during the viewing that could draw attention to him; it could prejudice the lineup process. As with the photo lineup, the distractor subjects need to be selected to be fairly similar to the suspect; however, unlike photo lineups, the live lineup requires the additional elements of ensuring that everyone is of similar height, weight, body shape, and dress. You cannot put the suspect dressed in a shirt and tie into a lineup with distractors wearing blue jeans and tee shirts.

Another means of suspect identification is permitting the witness to page through volumes of criminal file photos that are part of the local police photo collection. This technique is sometimes used when there are no identifiable suspects and the witness is reasonably certain that they will recognize the face of the suspect if they see it again. The negative aspects of this strategy are that it can take a great deal of time, and a witness can sometimes become confused by the process and overloaded with the viewing of too many faces, causing an eventual loss of confidence in making a proper identification (Gehl and Plecas, 2017).

Conclusion

To conclude, eyewitness testimony is very powerful and convincing to jurors, even though it is not particularly reliable. Identification errors occur, and these errors can lead to people being falsely accused and even convicted. Likewise, eyewitness memory can be corrupted by leading questions, misinterpretations of events, conversations with witnesses, and their own expectations for what should have happened. People can even come to remember whole events that never occurred.

The problems with memory in the legal system are real. But what can we do to start to fix them? A number of specific recommendations have already been made, and many of these are in the process of being implemented (e.g., Steblay & Loftus, 2012; Technical Working Group for Eyewitness Evidence, 1999; Wells et al., 1998). Some of these recommendations are aimed at specific legal procedures, including when and how witnesses should be interviewed, and how lineups should be constructed and conducted. Other recommendations call for appropriate education (often in the form of expert witness testimony) to be provided to jury members and others tasked with assessing eyewitness memory. Eyewitness testimony can be of great value to the legal system, but decades of research now argues that this testimony is often given far more weight than its accuracy justifies.