"To Protect The Innocent, Police Alter Lineups." Well, DUH! It's About Time!!
To protect the innocent, police alter lineups
By GRACE HOBSON
Brandon Moon was picked out of a police lineup as a rapist, and he spent almost 18 years in prison for the crime.
But DNA proved the eyewitness wrong. And the problem is, eyewitnesses are often wrong. In fact, 75 percent of DNA exoneration cases such as Moon’s involve mistakes by such witnesses.
Now advocates are urging police to change the way they conduct lineups.
“What do you need to go through to get the right person?” said Moon, now living in Olathe after his release from a Texas prison in 2004. “That’s what you should do.”
Armed with memory research and studies showing flaws in how witnesses identify suspects, police departments around the country are working to reduce mistaken identifications by changing how they show lineups to witnesses.
Police in New Jersey, Wisconsin and North Carolina have changed the way they do lineups. Dallas, Denver, Boston and Minneapolis also made changes.
Kansas City police say they will research the new methods, but for the most part, local police are sticking to what they know. They point out that DNA has not proved any wrongful convictions in the Kansas City area.
“At this juncture I’d be somewhat reluctant to make a bunch of sweeping changes just because it’s the vogue thing to do on the East Coast,” said Liberty Police Lt. Mark Balzer of the criminal investigation unit.
A new way
Unlike the lineups popular on TV crime dramas, most police don’t put the suspect and so-called fillers in a room for the witness to identify.
Instead, the detective working the case traditionally will show a witness a piece of paper with six similar-looking pictures. One person is usually the suspect, and the five others are fillers.
But the reforms adopted by many police departments are more reliable, advocates said. Two key changes:
•Instead of showing six pictures together, police show them one at a time, which is called a sequential lineup. Once shown, a picture is not to be seen again.
Memory experts say sequential lineups are better because they test a witness’s absolute memory — the witness compares each picture to the memory. With six pictures, the witness will compare each picture to the others and pick the person who looks most like the suspect, not necessarily the actual suspect.
•Instead of using the case detective to show the lineup, reformers are conducting “double blind” lineups with a detective who doesn’t know which photograph is the suspect. The method borrows from science in theorizing that even with the best intentions, those conducting the test can subtly influence the outcome.
Wrongful convictions
Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino have become outspoken advocates for reforming lineups.
Thompson-Cannino identified Cotton from a photo lineup and live lineup after her rape in 1984 in North Carolina. Police comments after the lineup affirmed her belief that she was right, and her testimony sent Cotton to prison.
Cotton spent 10½ years in prison for the rape before DNA exonerated him and incriminated another man.
Cotton and Thompson-Cannino now are pushing police departments to adopt sequential and double-blind lineups.
The changes are needed because eyewitnesses are so important to criminal investigations, but they are often unreliable, as evidenced by the country’s 245 DNA exonerations, said Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who pioneered the changes.
Eyewitness testimony has accounted for more wrongful convictions among the 245 cases than all the other causes combined, Wells said.
They all involved a sexual assault, and many had witnesses who testified how they studied the attacker’s face, would never forget the face and were sure they picked the right man from a lineup, he said.
And DNA cases are just the bad convictions that are known, Wells said. Most identifications come in robbery cases, where there is rarely DNA and not much time to view the criminal, he said.
Wells helped the Dallas Police Department make reforms earlier this year. Dallas leads the country in DNA exonerations.
The department did extensive training, including offering hours of information on memory research and flaws in eyewitness testimony, said Lt. David Pughes, who implemented the changes.
Leaders showed video of witnesses explaining why they picked a certain suspect and how sure they were before finding out they were wrong.
The department uses a special team for lineups so the detective is blind to the suspect.
Dallas police have shown about 1,800 lineups since making the change in April. Since then, the rate of witnesses picking the filler has hovered around 13 percent, compared with 20 to 25 percent using traditional methods.
Now “everybody is on board that this is a better way of doing it,” Pughes said.
No changes here
Kansas City Police Maj. Randall Hundley of the violent crimes division said the department would consider reforms.
“You should always look at new things to see if you can improve how you do your job,” Hundley said.
Kansas City uses a computer program to help detectives pick fillers for lineups. The detectives will discard or even digitally change any photos that stand out as too different from the others and make sure the suspect’s photo doesn’t stand out unfairly, said Detectives Michelle Mills and Eric DeValkenaere.
They are careful they don’t influence the witness and are sure to use the same language every time they present a lineup, they said.
DeValkenaere has no qualms about how they do lineups. For all the country’s DNA exonerations, countless DNA tests have shown the right person was convicted, he said.
While defending their current procedures, Mills, however, said the new methods were simply unfamiliar.
“When things are new and cutting-edge, it’s easy to be defensive about how you do things because it’s all we’ve known,” Mills said.
The Kansas City detectives and other area investigators said they recognize the limits of eyewitness testimony, so much so that it is rarely the only evidence against a suspect.
Kansas City, Kan., Capt. Ron Kaminski said he recalled a case where a witness saw a suspect in another crime on television and then picked him out of a lineup as the man who robbed him. But detectives learned that the suspect was at work when that robbery happened.
“We don’t stop at the lineup,” Kaminski said.
Lenexa Detective Jeff Hartzler has conducted sequential lineups for about six months, since he read about the Dallas Police Department’s reforms. His department does not do them routinely.
Hartzler does sequential lineups in part because he can show witnesses bigger pictures than when they are placed six to a page, not because he thinks they’re more accurate.
Balzer, with the Liberty police, said his department has made improvements to cut down on the fallibility of eyewitness identifications. For example, investigators tell witnesses that the criminal may not be in the lineup, Balzer said.
“I’d just as soon 100 guilty people walk out of here free than to be part of convicting one person who is innocent,” Balzer said.
By GRACE HOBSON
Brandon Moon was picked out of a police lineup as a rapist, and he spent almost 18 years in prison for the crime.
But DNA proved the eyewitness wrong. And the problem is, eyewitnesses are often wrong. In fact, 75 percent of DNA exoneration cases such as Moon’s involve mistakes by such witnesses.
Now advocates are urging police to change the way they conduct lineups.
“What do you need to go through to get the right person?” said Moon, now living in Olathe after his release from a Texas prison in 2004. “That’s what you should do.”
Armed with memory research and studies showing flaws in how witnesses identify suspects, police departments around the country are working to reduce mistaken identifications by changing how they show lineups to witnesses.
Police in New Jersey, Wisconsin and North Carolina have changed the way they do lineups. Dallas, Denver, Boston and Minneapolis also made changes.
Kansas City police say they will research the new methods, but for the most part, local police are sticking to what they know. They point out that DNA has not proved any wrongful convictions in the Kansas City area.
“At this juncture I’d be somewhat reluctant to make a bunch of sweeping changes just because it’s the vogue thing to do on the East Coast,” said Liberty Police Lt. Mark Balzer of the criminal investigation unit.
A new way
Unlike the lineups popular on TV crime dramas, most police don’t put the suspect and so-called fillers in a room for the witness to identify.
Instead, the detective working the case traditionally will show a witness a piece of paper with six similar-looking pictures. One person is usually the suspect, and the five others are fillers.
But the reforms adopted by many police departments are more reliable, advocates said. Two key changes:
•Instead of showing six pictures together, police show them one at a time, which is called a sequential lineup. Once shown, a picture is not to be seen again.
Memory experts say sequential lineups are better because they test a witness’s absolute memory — the witness compares each picture to the memory. With six pictures, the witness will compare each picture to the others and pick the person who looks most like the suspect, not necessarily the actual suspect.
•Instead of using the case detective to show the lineup, reformers are conducting “double blind” lineups with a detective who doesn’t know which photograph is the suspect. The method borrows from science in theorizing that even with the best intentions, those conducting the test can subtly influence the outcome.
Wrongful convictions
Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino have become outspoken advocates for reforming lineups.
Thompson-Cannino identified Cotton from a photo lineup and live lineup after her rape in 1984 in North Carolina. Police comments after the lineup affirmed her belief that she was right, and her testimony sent Cotton to prison.
Cotton spent 10½ years in prison for the rape before DNA exonerated him and incriminated another man.
Cotton and Thompson-Cannino now are pushing police departments to adopt sequential and double-blind lineups.
The changes are needed because eyewitnesses are so important to criminal investigations, but they are often unreliable, as evidenced by the country’s 245 DNA exonerations, said Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who pioneered the changes.
Eyewitness testimony has accounted for more wrongful convictions among the 245 cases than all the other causes combined, Wells said.
They all involved a sexual assault, and many had witnesses who testified how they studied the attacker’s face, would never forget the face and were sure they picked the right man from a lineup, he said.
And DNA cases are just the bad convictions that are known, Wells said. Most identifications come in robbery cases, where there is rarely DNA and not much time to view the criminal, he said.
Wells helped the Dallas Police Department make reforms earlier this year. Dallas leads the country in DNA exonerations.
The department did extensive training, including offering hours of information on memory research and flaws in eyewitness testimony, said Lt. David Pughes, who implemented the changes.
Leaders showed video of witnesses explaining why they picked a certain suspect and how sure they were before finding out they were wrong.
The department uses a special team for lineups so the detective is blind to the suspect.
Dallas police have shown about 1,800 lineups since making the change in April. Since then, the rate of witnesses picking the filler has hovered around 13 percent, compared with 20 to 25 percent using traditional methods.
Now “everybody is on board that this is a better way of doing it,” Pughes said.
No changes here
Kansas City Police Maj. Randall Hundley of the violent crimes division said the department would consider reforms.
“You should always look at new things to see if you can improve how you do your job,” Hundley said.
Kansas City uses a computer program to help detectives pick fillers for lineups. The detectives will discard or even digitally change any photos that stand out as too different from the others and make sure the suspect’s photo doesn’t stand out unfairly, said Detectives Michelle Mills and Eric DeValkenaere.
They are careful they don’t influence the witness and are sure to use the same language every time they present a lineup, they said.
DeValkenaere has no qualms about how they do lineups. For all the country’s DNA exonerations, countless DNA tests have shown the right person was convicted, he said.
While defending their current procedures, Mills, however, said the new methods were simply unfamiliar.
“When things are new and cutting-edge, it’s easy to be defensive about how you do things because it’s all we’ve known,” Mills said.
The Kansas City detectives and other area investigators said they recognize the limits of eyewitness testimony, so much so that it is rarely the only evidence against a suspect.
Kansas City, Kan., Capt. Ron Kaminski said he recalled a case where a witness saw a suspect in another crime on television and then picked him out of a lineup as the man who robbed him. But detectives learned that the suspect was at work when that robbery happened.
“We don’t stop at the lineup,” Kaminski said.
Lenexa Detective Jeff Hartzler has conducted sequential lineups for about six months, since he read about the Dallas Police Department’s reforms. His department does not do them routinely.
Hartzler does sequential lineups in part because he can show witnesses bigger pictures than when they are placed six to a page, not because he thinks they’re more accurate.
Balzer, with the Liberty police, said his department has made improvements to cut down on the fallibility of eyewitness identifications. For example, investigators tell witnesses that the criminal may not be in the lineup, Balzer said.
“I’d just as soon 100 guilty people walk out of here free than to be part of convicting one person who is innocent,” Balzer said.
Labels: Crime, Justice, Punishment
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:10 AM
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