Justice NOT Served?
Police should limit show-up IDs
Unreliable method doesn't serve justice
As DNA testing reveals the unreliability of traditional lineups, Lexington police still use a method that produces even more false identifications.
On Sunday, Herald-Leader staffers Delano R. Massey and Valarie Honeycutt Spears told the story of Corey Jackson, a young black man who is in prison because the white victim of an armed robbery identified him as he was handcuffed and surrounded by white officers near the scene of the crime.
There were no other eyewitnesses or physical evidence. Police never recovered the assailant's gun or the victim's purse or its contents, even though Jackson was picked up less than a half-hour after the robbery. The only money in the purse was a $5 bill; Jackson was carrying one $20 bill. He said he was going to change it for bus fare to go take his General Educational Development test.
A jury of 10 white women, one white man and one black man convicted him, and he was sentenced to 13 years.
An expert in criminal identification, Iowa State University professor Gary Wells, who studied the case, said that "you could take any black male of that age and put him in handcuffs, and I think they would have gotten a positive ID."
This identification method, when a witness is shown one person rather than a group, is known as a show-up. Research shows that show-ups are far more likely than lineups to produce false identifications.
Lexington police didn't even conduct the show-up properly. It should have been in a neutral setting, which it most certainly was not, and Jackson should have been identified not as a "suspect" but as someone who was walking in the area.
Jackson is appealing his conviction.
The case also raises larger questions. DNA evidence has exonerated several hundred prisoners, three-fourths of whom were convicted on the basis of lineups.
Given that show-ups are even more prone to error, police in Lexington and across Kentucky should reconsider using show-ups in any but the most extraordinary circumstances, such as when a witness is hospitalized and not expected to live.
Kentucky's legislature should also consider reforming identification procedures, as eight states did last year.
If innocent people are imprisoned on faulty identifications, the real criminals remain free to roam the streets.
Unreliable method doesn't serve justice
As DNA testing reveals the unreliability of traditional lineups, Lexington police still use a method that produces even more false identifications.
On Sunday, Herald-Leader staffers Delano R. Massey and Valarie Honeycutt Spears told the story of Corey Jackson, a young black man who is in prison because the white victim of an armed robbery identified him as he was handcuffed and surrounded by white officers near the scene of the crime.
There were no other eyewitnesses or physical evidence. Police never recovered the assailant's gun or the victim's purse or its contents, even though Jackson was picked up less than a half-hour after the robbery. The only money in the purse was a $5 bill; Jackson was carrying one $20 bill. He said he was going to change it for bus fare to go take his General Educational Development test.
A jury of 10 white women, one white man and one black man convicted him, and he was sentenced to 13 years.
An expert in criminal identification, Iowa State University professor Gary Wells, who studied the case, said that "you could take any black male of that age and put him in handcuffs, and I think they would have gotten a positive ID."
This identification method, when a witness is shown one person rather than a group, is known as a show-up. Research shows that show-ups are far more likely than lineups to produce false identifications.
Lexington police didn't even conduct the show-up properly. It should have been in a neutral setting, which it most certainly was not, and Jackson should have been identified not as a "suspect" but as someone who was walking in the area.
Jackson is appealing his conviction.
The case also raises larger questions. DNA evidence has exonerated several hundred prisoners, three-fourths of whom were convicted on the basis of lineups.
Given that show-ups are even more prone to error, police in Lexington and across Kentucky should reconsider using show-ups in any but the most extraordinary circumstances, such as when a witness is hospitalized and not expected to live.
Kentucky's legislature should also consider reforming identification procedures, as eight states did last year.
If innocent people are imprisoned on faulty identifications, the real criminals remain free to roam the streets.
Labels: Crime, Justice, Punishment
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 6:06 PM
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