Eyewitness identification procedures: The fifth rule.

Abstract

The National Institute of Justice recently published a report of the first 28 cases in which convicted felons were exonerated by DNA evidence after varying numbers of years in prison. Remarkably, all of these cases contained one or more false eyewitness identifications (Connors, Lundregan, Miller, & McEwan, 1996). To those unfamiliar with the hundreds of published studies on the subject, this disclosure may come as something of a shock. To members of the scientific community, however, it suggests the humbling possibility that our research has underachieved in its impact on the criminal justice system. The time has come for eyewitness researchers and experts to move out of the laboratory and courtroom-and into the police station. The time has come to use all that we know to improve the procedures used to conduct the lineups and photoarrays that too often give rise to mistaken identifications. In this light, the guidelines put forth by Wells, Small, Penrod, Malpass, Fulero, and Brimcombe (1998) represent a most important, insightful, and necessary step. The four recommendations-for double-blind lineup testing, nonbiased instructions, the matching of distractors to the witness's description, and the immediate assessment of confidence-are ideally suited to minimize many potential problems. But what about the potential negative impact of failing to elevate-and hence, relegating-other prescriptions to status? The rationale for limiting the number of rules is commendable, as is the need to ensure that these rules be relatively independent of one another, feasible, and easy to justify. But there is one recommendation (already being implemented in some precincts) that the authors considered and did not propose that is arguably the most important rule of all: the videotaping of the lineup and witness identification. There are two reasons for this proposed addition. First, we need to acknowledge that the circumstances surrounding lineup identifications are often not accurately preserved or represented in police reports and testimony. As with others who serve as eyewitness experts, I have had more than one occasion to observe that descriptions of the process given by investigators are often inconsistent with statements made by the witnesses themselves or even with videotapes when these are available (in my own experience, for example, I have