Attorney Find Blog

Last spring, the Illinois legislature received a report based on a year-long pilot program designed to test a different procedure for police line-ups and photo identifications. Instead of including a suspect in a traditional line-up or a photo array, a witness would be shown photographs, or live participants, sequentially. Researchers generally agreed that sequential exposure should result in a smaller number of false identifications, both because participants would study each candidate more carefully and because comparative evaluation (wherein a witness compared photographs or participants to one another and would be more likely to choose the “closest” one) would be avoided.

However, the report to the legislature included surprising findings, and those findings, the NACDL says, are being used to fuel resistance to line-up procedure reform across the country. Thus, the organization wants access to the data used to support the reports conclusions.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 7:27 am and is filed under Criminal Defense Law and Criminal Defense Lawyers, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.