No Cheating Allowed: Prince George’s County Adopts the Double-Blind Method of Eyewitness Photo Identification

On February 9, 2014, the Prince George’s County Police Department (MD) announced that it will start conducting photo lineups using the “double-blind” method.  The new changes will require police officers to institute two safeguards when showing eyewitnesses a photo lineup: (1) police officers must show the witness the photos one at a time, rather than all at once; and (2) the police officer showing the photos must be unfamiliar with the case.  The change is part of an effort to minimize false identifications and subsequently, wrongful convictions.  The accuracy of photo lineups has been a hot topic over the past decade as DNA evidence has been used more frequently to overturn convictions.  A recent study by the innocence project found that eyewitness misidentification plays a role in over 75% of convictions overturned by DNA testing, making it the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide.

In-Court Identification: Is It Inherently Prejudicial?

There is a hotly contested battle between the prosecution and the defendant on the reliability of various types of identification procedures.  Anyone in the criminal field will have heard about a photo array or a lineup.  However, there is one type of procedure that seems to fly under the radar: the in-court identification.  This presents a real due process concern because even though eyewitness testimony is unreliable and open to post experience suggestion, it is still very persuasive to juries.  Further, an in-court identification is much more dramatic than a pretrial identification procedure and thus has the potential to compound the persuasiveness to juries.