Protecting innocent defendants, nailing the guilty: a modified sequential lineup

Abstract

Can the traditional lineup procedure be modified in such a way as to still secure positive identifications of guilty persons while minimizing the risk of misidentifications? Witnesses interacted with a ‘culprit’ who they were later called upon to identify from a 20-person sequential video lineup. Both culprit-present and culprit-absent lineups were employed and witnesses could choose more than one suspect. In 61 culprit-present lineups 43% chose only the suspect, while in 93 culprit-absent lineups no-one did. In culprit-present lineups 25% chose him along with foils, while 5% did so in culprit-absent lineups. Larger lineup size, and the ability to make multiple choices, helped lower the probability of choosing only an innocent suspect. Using Baysian analysis, the probability that a chosen defendant was innocent, based on the lineup alone, equalled 0.03, compared to 0.258 in traditional lineups. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.