• 28
  • November
    2011

Eyewitnesses to crimes are often called upon to identify the perpetrators of crimes. In theory, this practice makes sense; who better to help law enforcement officials identify perpetrators than those who were present when the crime took place?

One major problem is often present in this scenario, however: the identification of suspects by eyewitnesses can be unreliable. Unreliable eyewitnesses can be the catalyst that allows innocent people to be accused of crimes they did not commit, forcing them to mount a complicated criminal defense to prove their innocence.

Due to the risk of misidentification or identifying an innocent person, new techniques for identifying suspects are being studied. One such technique is the use of sequential lineups as opposed to traditional simultaneous lineups.

Sequential lineups involve photographs shown to eyewitnesses sequentially (one at a time) by a disinterested law enforcement officer. The idea behind sequential lineups is that witnesses are forced to rely on their memories of the incident as they look at each photograph, which is believed to be more reliable than a simultaneous lineup - in a simultaneous lineup, eyewitnesses often compare the people in the lineup to one another to find the person they believe committed the crime.

A 2006 study determined that eyewitnesses select a suspect more often in a simultaneous lineup than if shown a sequential lineup, and when people choose a suspect in a sequential lineup, they often choose innocent people. However, the results of a new study refute the findings of the 2006 study.

The results of the new study, conducted from 2008 to 2011, concluded that eyewitnesses pick a suspect during a sequential lineup just as often as during a simultaneous lineup, according to the New York Times. However, the new study, which involved real cases and not a laboratory setting, found that eyewitnesses identified fillers - the people the police put into the lineup with the suspect - significantly less often in sequential lineups than in simultaneous lineups (12 percent in sequential lineups versus 18 percent in simultaneous lineups).

According to the results of the new study, increased utilization of sequential lineups may lessen occurrences of innocent people being accused of and ultimately convicted of crimes they did not commit.