You may have read or heard before about the serious injustice often created by "bad" or "dishonest" lineups, or the way they are presented to witnesses. Certain states have started addressing the issue in drafting new guidelines for lineups. I have started collecting bad lineups, and if anyone of you has any bad lineup, please make sure to forward them to me.
Now, to prove the point, here is the game.
1. You look at the lineup. (note: YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION about anything concerning the case)
2. Without any supporting evidence, you naturally pick the defendant.
In this case, if you picked number two, you got it right.
So next time you sit on a jury panel, make sure you remember this little game when the identification of the accused is based only on a lineup.
The problem goes beyond dishonest and "bad" lineups -- even when the lineup has not been rigged or have any racial or other bias intentionally built in, identifications are many, many times mistakes. See the Japanese classic movie Rashoman man by the great director Akira Kurosawa (e.g.,the Seven Samurai), of an alleged crime in a Tokyo city park seen in part by five different witnesses. The movie describes what each believes he saw and how dramatically honest people see things differently. In fact, the movie is much deeper than that on a philosophical level, but every person who intends to be a trial lawyer should see the movie at least twice.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to lineups, moreover, I believe it is axiomatic that psychologically a pa race other than his or her own.
What the last line of my post above was supposed to say was:
ReplyDelete"When it comes to lineups. I believe it is axiomatic that psychologically a person finds it difficult to differentiate faces of persons of an other race other than his or her own.
What my post is saying is that like some appellate opinions, the make up of the lineup is often result driven...
ReplyDelete