NSF PR 97-1 - January 3, 1997
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False Identification: New Research Seeks to Inoculate
Eyewitnesses Against Errors
More than 75,000 people become crime suspects each
year in the United States based on being identified
from lineups and photo spreads. Some identifications
will be false and lead to mistaken arrests and imprisonments.
A recent study* reveals
the extent of this problem. In 24 of a sample 28 cases
involving Americans who were released from prison
in the last few years based on DNA evidence that proved
their innocence, eyewitnesses had made false identifications
from photo spreads and lineups. No one knows how many
others may be unjustly jailed every year due to false
identifications.
New research sponsored by the National Science Foundation
(NSF) is now helping to understand the circumstances
that lead to false identifications and to find ways
to reduce their occurrences. The results should eventually
help police and jurors who must decide the fate of
a suspect based on the confidence of an eyewitness
account.
Particularly troublesome, says Gary Wells, a psychologist
at Iowa State University who has conducted NSF-funded
research in this area, is evidence that an objective
question such as "How certain are you that the person
you identified is the person you saw commit the crime?"
elicits a similar response regardless of whether the
eyewitness' memory is accurate or not.
This discovery surprised Wells and his team of researchers,
who hoped a direct question would counteract certain
influences on an eyewitness' memory. They knew that
confidence can be manipulated easily if eyewitnesses
receive information about a suspect after making an
identification. Their earlier research indicated that
casual remarks ("Yes, you've identified the same suspect
we picked up for questioning") uttered by police station
personnel administering suspect lineups or photo spreads
can bolster the confidence of an eyewitness and distort
the witness' memory.
The latest research funded by NSF reveals that, once
an eyewitness' memory has been distorted in this way,
a straightforward cross-examination often fails to
produce an accurate recollection. In particular, eyewitnesses
began to change their answers to questions about how
much attention they had paid to the culprit, how good
a view they had of the culprit's face, and other factors
surrounding the event. As a result, Wells believes
stronger steps are needed to "inoculate" eyewitnesses'
memories, especially over the weeks and months that
may stretch between the crime and a courtroom trial.
"We know the nature of the problem," says Wells. "Now
we need to look at ways to prevent manipulation. Part
of the solution is to require blind testing, where
the person administering line-ups or picture spreads
does not know who the suspects are" and therefore
cannot bias the eyewitness, he says.
Wells also suspects that more accurate testimonies
may result from posing a series of deliberate questions
immediately after identification to probe an eyewitness'
confidence and memory. Questions such as "How clear
a view did you have of the suspect?" "How long did
you look at him?" "How easy was it for you to make
the identification from the photo spread?" may help
reduce later distortions of their answers, he says.
This is his next line of study.
To test the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies, Wells
and his team staged thefts and possible acts of fraud
before unsuspecting potential eyewitnesses in offices,
stores and waiting rooms; the eyewitnesses then were
asked to make identifications under various conditions
which isolated factors that could affect the confidence
of their memories.
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