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    Stuff You Should Know

    Selects: How Police Lineups Work

    Sat Jul 15 2023
    eyewitness testimonypolice lineupswrongful convictionsRidiculous History podcast

    Description

    The episode covers the reliability and flaws of eyewitness testimony and police lineups. It explores the Ridiculous History podcast, wrongful conviction cases, challenges in lineup procedures, best practices for lineup administration, flaws in lineup procedures study, challenges in creating accurate lineups, controversial lineup practices, and concerns and impact of eyewitness testimony.

    Insights

    Eyewitness testimony is unreliable

    Human memory is imperfect and reconstructs memories based on limited information. Eyewitness testimony can lead to wrongful convictions or the escape of perpetrators.

    Best practices for lineup administration

    Double-blind administration and informing witnesses that the suspect may not be in the lineup reduce misidentification rates. Sequential lineups are considered more effective than simultaneous lineups.

    Flaws in lineup procedures study

    The methodology of a study on lineup procedures was flawed, leading to biased results. The findings set back the adoption of sequential double-blind studies in lineup procedures.

    Challenges in creating accurate lineups

    Creating lineups based on witness descriptions can be challenging, and details of omission can lead to inaccurate lineups. Police precincts may not implement best practices.

    Controversial lineup practices

    Casting agents are used to help fill lineups, and sometimes homeless people or drug addicts are used as fillers. Show ups, where a witness identifies a suspect who is already in jail, are highly biased.

    Concerns and impact of eyewitness testimony

    Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable and misidentification is a major concern. The risk of misidentifying innocent individuals and the impact on court cases are significant.

    Chapters

    1. Introduction
    2. Ridiculous History Podcast
    3. Flaws in Eyewitness Testimony
    4. Challenges in Lineup Procedures
    5. Best Practices for Lineup Administration
    6. Flaws in Lineup Procedures Study
    7. Challenges in Creating Accurate Lineups
    8. Controversial Lineup Practices
    9. Concerns and Impact of Eyewitness Testimony
    Summary
    Transcript

    Introduction

    00:00 - 06:56

    • The HP Smart Tank Printer is a reliable printer brand with up to two years of ink included.
    • Foundation, a visually stunning series based on Isaac Asimov's novels, is now streaming on Apple TV+.
    • Josh has chosen the 2018 episode 'How Police Lineups Work' for this week's Select.
    • Ben and Noel are guests on the podcast Ridiculous History, where they explore bizarre events throughout history.
    • Ridiculous History covers topics ranging from Napoleon Bonaparte being attacked by bunnies to the racist special Olympics held in St. Louis, Missouri.
    • The hosts touch on both humorous and serious moments in history, including an episode about women imprisoned in labor camps for having STDs in Kansas during the 1920s.

    Ridiculous History Podcast

    06:38 - 13:35

    • Ridiculous History can be found on the website and various podcast platforms.
    • They have a community page called Ridiculous Historians on Facebook.
    • The hosts express gratitude for the compliments and thank the guests for coming.
    • They discuss their new studio space, which has some issues with formaldehyde.
    • One of the hosts spilled coffee on himself but luckily had a t-shirt sample to wear.
    • They mention listener suggestions and express surprise that they haven't covered police lineups before.
    • They explain what gumshoes are and how detectives used to wear them.
    • The episode focuses on a wrongful conviction case involving flawed eyewitness testimony.
    • Jerry Miller was exonerated after spending 24 years in prison due to DNA evidence.

    Flaws in Eyewitness Testimony

    13:10 - 20:11

    • Human memory and identifying people in lineups are imperfect.
    • Eyewitness testimony is flawed due to various factors.
    • People's brains reconstruct memories based on limited information.
    • Paying attention and collecting details can improve eyewitness testimony.
    • The speaker had a personal experience with a failed police lineup identification.
    • Eyewitness testimony can lead to wrongful convictions or the escape of perpetrators.
    • 75% of the first 183 DNA exonerations in the US were due to faulty eyewitness testimony and police lineups.
    • The Innocence Project focuses on exposing wrongful convictions, with eyewitness testimony being a major issue.
    • Eyewitness testimony has a significant impact but is unreliable as evidence.

    Challenges in Lineup Procedures

    19:57 - 27:12

    • Eyewitness Testimony is difficult to recover, easy to contaminate, and hard to handle
    • Eyewitnesses may have difficulty remembering details in fight or flight situations
    • Focus on a weapon can distract from remembering the perpetrator's face
    • Cross-racial eyewitness testimony is known to be unreliable
    • Lineups can be conducted with live individuals or photographs
    • Sequential lineups are considered more effective than simultaneous lineups

    Best Practices for Lineup Administration

    26:50 - 33:48

    • In a lineup, sequential presentation of suspects or photos one at a time is considered better than simultaneous presentation.
    • The administrator's knowledge of the suspect can influence the lineup outcome, so double-blind administration is preferred.
    • Nonverbal cues or leading questions from the administrator can unintentionally influence witness identification.
    • Informing witnesses that the suspect may not be in the lineup reduces mistaken identity rates.
    • Children and elderly individuals perform similarly to young adults when an offender is present in the lineup, but make more mistakes when there is no offender.
    • A sequential double-blind lineup administered by someone who doesn't know the suspect's identity reduces misidentification chances.
    • A study in Illinois challenged this idea, but its methodology has been questioned by other researchers.
    • Relative judgment is used in simultaneous lineups where all suspects are presented together, while absolute judgment is used in sequential lineups where suspects are presented one at a time.

    Flaws in Lineup Procedures Study

    33:21 - 40:44

    • Simultaneous lineups use relative judgment, comparing all suspects against each other.
    • Sequential lineups use absolute judgment, comparing each suspect to memory only.
    • The methodology of the study on lineup procedures was flawed.
    • The Illinois pilot program used a double-blind procedure for sequential lineups but not for simultaneous lineups, leading to biased results.
    • The study's findings set back the adoption of sequential double-blind studies in lineup procedures.
    • Officers expressed concerns about using blind administrators and preferred the traditional method.
    • Building a proper lineup requires finding an unbiased administrator, which can be challenging and costly.
    • Multiple perpetrators in a lineup can confuse witnesses and increase the chance of random guessing.

    Challenges in Creating Accurate Lineups

    40:23 - 47:05

    • Having multiple suspects in a lineup increases the chances of one of them being chosen by random
    • Police precincts often want to be left alone and may not implement best practices
    • Creating lineups based on witness descriptions can be challenging
    • Different strategies are used to make everyone in a lineup look similar to the suspect or perpetrator
    • Details of omission in witness descriptions can lead to inaccurate lineups
    • Assuming clean-shaven appearance for suspects when not mentioned by witnesses

    Controversial Lineup Practices

    46:41 - 52:48

    • Casting agents are used by police to help fill lineups.
    • Sometimes homeless people or drug addicts are used as fillers in lineups.
    • Cops will find people on the street or go to homeless shelters to find lineup fillers.
    • A confirmatory lineup is the one seen on TV where a witness identifies a suspect who is already in jail.
    • A show up, where an officer brings a witness to identify a suspect, is the worst version of this process.
    • In a show up, there are no other people to compare the suspect to and they are in handcuffs, which can bias the witness's identification.

    Concerns and Impact of Eyewitness Testimony

    52:30 - 58:52

    • Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable due to memory distortion and misidentification.
    • Misidentification occurs when the witness's memory replaces a vague face with the person they saw during a show-up or identification process.
    • Even though eyewitness testimony is often flawed, it still holds significant weight in court cases.
    • Lowering the importance of eyewitness testimony could lead to cases built solely on it having no basis.
    • The risk of misidentifying innocent individuals and them serving long prison sentences is a major concern.
    • The Innocence Project has shed light on wrongful convictions based on faulty eyewitness testimony.
    • A listener shares how their baby stopped crying when they played the podcast, jokingly attributing it to SYSK magic.
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