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For Immediate Release
July 26, 2001
NEWARK, NJ — The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey today praised a move by Attorney General John Farmer to adopt a witness identification technique that will result in fewer false identifications.
Rather than the current practice of having witnesses review books of mug shots, crime witness will now be shown pictures one after another and not permitted to browse. Sequential photo lineups have been shown to significantly cut down on the number of false identifications by eyewitnesses without reducing the number of correct ones.
“The ACLU believes that adoption of sequential photo lineups will help prevent false convictions in New Jersey,” said Deborah Jacobs, Executive Director of the ACLU of New Jersey. “With this policy change, New Jersey is showing itself a leader in protecting the rights of the accused.”
Research psychologists have been studying the reliability of eyewitness testimony for more than 20 years, staging mock crimes and observing the success of identifications made when presented in different manners. Law professors sometimes stage classroom “robberies” and ask students to provide descriptions of suspects, in order to demonstrate how challenging accurate identification can be.
Studies showed that witnesses often identify the wrong person, and that police interviewing techniques could affect the witnesses' decision making. Researchers found, however, that witness reliability could be significantly improved with the implementation of different techniques, such as sequential photo lineups.
In late 1999, the Department of Justice published, for the first time, national guidelines on gathering witness testimony. The study was generated in light of questions about the reliability of witness identifications that arose in the wake of DNA testing that proved the innocence of numerous convicted felons.
“Many wrongfully convicted people were sent away based on little more than a witness ID,” Jacobs said. “It doesn't take much to recognize that witnesses can be mistaken, or manipulated, especially under stressful circumstances.”
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