Eyewitness Identification

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Eyewitness Identification

• Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, Ph.D.
• Associate Professor
• Department of Psychology
• UA Huntsville
• neuschaj_at_uah.edu

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Voir Dire

• Ph.D. Psychology, 1999, Binghamton University
• Associate Professor at UA Huntsville
• Over 14 Years of Research on Eyewitness Memory
• Author of over 20 publications on psychology of
  eyewitness memory
• Editorial Board of Law and Human Behavior
• Expert witness in state and federal courts

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Presentation Outline

• Accuracy of Eyewitness Identification
• How Memory Works
• Assessing Identification Accuracy
• Show-ups and Photoarray Procedures
• Best Practices in Identification Tests
• Role of the Expert Witness
• Conclusions

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Case Studies of Erroneous Conviction

• Borchard (1932) 65 cases in 27 states and
  England main cause mistaken ID
• Brandon Davies (1973) 70 cases of wrongful
  conviction due to inaccurate eyewitnesses
• Huff (1977) 500 cases of erroneous conviction,
  eyewitness error in 60
• Rattner (1988) 205 wrongfully convicted, 52 due
  to inaccurate eyewitness testimony

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Innocence Project

• 210 DNA Exonerations as of November, 2007
• Eyewitness errors gt2/3
• Eyewitness error remains the single most
  important cause of wrongful imprisonment
• www.innocenceproject.org

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Identification Accuracy Rates in Field Experiments
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How Memory Does Not Work

?
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How Memory Works

• Storehouse vs. Correspondence
• Information Processing
• Encoding
• Storage
• Retrieval

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How Memory Does Work

• Fragments of information
• Become integrated
• Prior information
• Expectations
• Post event information
• Memories not set in Concrete
• Changes with time
• New information added
• Inconsistent information eliminated

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How Memory Does Work

• Circumstances in which memory is inaccurate
• Encoding
• Environment poor viewing conditions
• State of the observer- stress, distraction
• Storage
• Retention Interval
• Similar events
• Retrieval
• Biased tests
• Leading questions

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How We Know What We Know

• Scientific Method
• Crime Simulation Methodology
• Perpetrator-Present and Absent Tests
• Hundreds of Studies
• Meta-Analyses

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Simulation Methodology

• Benefits
• Control over Extraneous Factors
• Repeated Observations
• Knowing Right from Wrong
• Establishing Causality
• Drawbacks
• Authenticity
• Approximating Real Conditions
• Stress
• weapons

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Encoding Factors The Big 5

• Own-Race Bias (cross race identification)
• Exposure Duration
• Cues to Hair and Hairline
• Appearance change
• Extreme Stress
• Weapon Focus

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Own Race Bias

• Meissner and Brigham (2001)
• 31 separate studies
• 91 separate experimental tests of ORB
• 1.4 times more likely to correctly identify
  members of their own race
• 1.56 times more likely to falsely identify
  members of other races than members of their own
  race
• White participants demonstrated a significantly
  larger own-race bias when compared with Black
  participants but only with respect to false
  identifications

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Own Race Bias

• Platz and Hosch (2001)
• Field Study
• White, Black, Hispanic customers
• White, Black, Hispanic convenience store clerks
• 2-3 hours later given identification test
• Results Own Race Bias for all races

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Exposure Duration

• longer and clearer viewing times lead to better
  memory and, therefore, enhanced identification
  accuracy

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Appearance Change

• Cutler and colleagues
• witnesses watched videotaped crimes and later
  attempted lineup identifications.
• perpetrator wore a cap or his head was uncovered
• The average performance levels across the six
  studies (n 1,300 eyewitness identifications)
• 57 correct when uncovered
• 44 when a hat was worn

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Importance of Hair and Hairline
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Extreme Stress

• Stress perception of the potential threat of
  injury or death to oneself or to another person
• Laboratory
• Violent versus non-violent videotaped crimes
• Field Studies

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Extreme Stress

• Yerkes-Dodson Curve (inverted U)
• Easterbrooks cue-utilization theory

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Extreme Stress

• Morgan et al. (2004)
• extreme vs. mild stress
• 530 active-duty military in survival school
• high-stress interrogation
• low-stress interrogation
• correct identification rates
• low-stress interrogation (62)
• high stress condition (27)

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Weapon Focus

• Presence of a weapon
• Focus on weapon
• less attention to deploy for other information
• Loftus, Loftus, and Messo (1987)
• tracked direction and duration of eye movements
• watched slides of a person
• check or a weapon
• Weapon looked longer and more often
• Memories significantly worse in the weapon
  condition

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Expert Agreement
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Storage Factors

• Passage of Time
• Misleading Post-event Information
• Co-Witness Information
• Intervening Identification Tests
• Post Identifications Feedback

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Misleading Post event Information
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Co-Witness Information

• Luus Wells (1994)
• Experiment 1
• Co-witness
• (Same, Different, No)
• Results
• Experiment 2
• Videotape interrogations

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Intervening Identification Tests

• Re-showing picture
• Repeatedly showing the lineup
• Mugshots

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Post Identification Feedback

• Wells and Bradfield (1998)
• Procedure
• View an event
• Target-absent lineup
• PIF
• Confirming (Good, you picked the suspect)
• Disconfirming (The suspect was actually)
• No Feedback
• Results
• Certainty
• View
• Attention
• Willingness to testify

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Witness Confidence

• Reliability
• confidence accuracy correlation .40 in the best
  circumstances
• Malleability
• Non-memorial Factor
• Re-telling, postevent information, Feedback
• Influence on Jurors

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Reasons for Positive Identifications of Suspects

• Correct Recognition ?
• Guessing ?
• Deduction ?
• Process of elimination
• Investigator Influence ?

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Show-ups v. Photoarrays

• Correct Recognition ?
• Guessing ?
• Deduction ?
• Investigator Influence ?

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Photoarray Factors

• Instructions to the Eyewitness
• Composing the Photoarray
• Presenting the Photoarray
• Eliminating Investigator Bias

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Instructions to the Eyewitness

• Whats wrong with this instruction?
• Circle the number of the person who robbed you

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Research on InstructionsSteblay, 1997, Law and
Human Behavior22 tests, 2588 witnesses
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Composing the Photoarray

• Having fillers is not enough
• Suspect should not stand out
• Match-to-Suspect Strategy
• Ex. Eyewitness description
• Tall, thin male, dark hair. moustache
• Lineup members
• Some short
• Some light hair
• Some clean shaven

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Composing the Photoarray

• Having Filler is not enough
• Suspect should not stand out
• Match-to-Suspect Strategy
• Innocent suspect who matches the description of
  the offender will stand out
• Match-to-Perpetrator Description Strategy
• No one will standout based on the witnesses
  description

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Presenting the Photoarray

• Simultaneous
• Relative judgment
• Correct Recognition ?
• Guessing ?
• Deduction ?
• Sequential
• Absolute Judgment
• Correct Recognition ?

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Simultaneous Presentation
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Sequential Presentation
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Sequential Presentation
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Sequential Presentation
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Simultaneous vs. Sequential PresentationSteblay,
2001 30 tests, 4145 witnesses
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Investigator Bias

• Double-Blind
• Multiple Lineup administrations
• Garrioch Brimacombe, 2001
• influence can occur even if the lineup
  administrator and the witness both indicate that
  there was no influence

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Identification Procedure Reforms Completed or In
Progress

• State of New Jersey
• State of North Carolina
• State of Illinois
• State of Virginia
• Suffolk County, MA (Boston)
• Hennepin County, MN (Minneapolis)
• Santa Clara County, CA
• King County, WA (Seattle)
• Suffolk County, MA
• American Bar Association

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NJ and NC Recommendations

• Proper Admonitions
• 6-8 Photos Minimum
• Fillers Should Fit Description of Perpetrator not
  the appearance
• Double-Blind
• Sequential Presentation
• No Post-Identification Feedback
• Confidence Assessed Immediately

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Benefits of Implementation

• Less misidentification of innocent
• Keep investigation on guilty
• Misidentification guilty still at large
• Assist jurors and judges
• Mistaken identification still possible but not
  for procedural errors

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Role of the Expert

• Can not determine accuracy
• Report on state of the science
• Factors that increase eyewitness accuracy
• Factors that decrease eyewitness accuracy

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Implications for Practice

• Assess Accuracy ?
• Expose Relevant Eyewitness Factors ?
• Expose Substandard Practices ?