Understanding Eyewitness Misidentifications
Tens of thousands of suspects are identified by eyewitnesses in line-ups each year. How accurate are those identifications? Eyewitness misidentifications were the most common type of flawed evidence in the cases of the first 250 innocent people cleared by DNA tests. In Chapter Three of my new book, Convicting the Innocent, I describe what often goes wrong. Police use live line-ups and, far more often, photo arrays to test the memory of an eyewitness to a crime. The remarkable image below captures what can go wrong in those identification procedures. Look at this photo. The victim originally told the police that her attacker was “well built” and had a “round face.” Does any person stand out? The man on the far right seems to be the only one who would fit that description.