In 1981, 22-year-old Jerry Miller was arrested and charged with robbing, kidnapping, and raping a woman. Two witnesses identified Miller, in a police lineup, as the perpetrator. The victim provided a more tentative identification at trial. Miller was convicted, served 24 years in prison, and was released on parole as a registered sex offender, requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring device at all times.
Recent DNA tests, however, tell a different story: Semen taken from the victim’s clothing—which could have come only from the perpetrator—did not come from Miller. In fact, when a DNA profile was created from the semen and entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s convicted offender database, another man was implicated in the crime.
On April 23, 2007, Miller became the 200th person in the United States to be exonerated through DNA evidence.
Eyewitnesses play a vital role in the administration of justice in this country. Their testimony can provide the key to identifying, charging, and convicting a suspect in a criminal case. Indeed, in some cases, eyewitness evidence may be the only evidence available.
Yet cases like Miller’s show that eyewitness evidence is not perfect. Even the most well-intentioned witnesses can identify the wrong person or fail to identify the perpetrator of a crime. According to the American Judicature Society, misidentification by eyewitnesses was the leading cause of wrongful conviction in more than 75 percent of the first 183 DNA exonerations in the United States.
These cases have caused criminal justice professionals to take a closer look at eyewitness evidence, specifically at the effectiveness of identifying suspects from photographic and live lineups. And recent studies on lineup structure and implementation have led to even more questions and disagreement in the field, highlighting the need for more research and dialogue about what works. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has initiated a multi-site field experiment of eyewitness evidence to examine the effectiveness and accuracy of this crucial and powerful component of the Nation’s criminal justice system as it is used in police departments and courtrooms across the country.
READ ON
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/258/police-lineups.html
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The data cited Lieutenant Foster's post on the link between mistaken identifications and wrongful convictions comes from The Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School. See: http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php.
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