Eyewitness identification study takes on reliability

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A new study on eyewitness identification has found that when a witness views suspects one at a time the identification is more reliable than if the witness views all suspects in a lineup at the same time.

The study comes on the heels of a New Jersey Supreme Court decision mandating changes in the way courts evaluate eyewitness identification evidence.

Although dozens of studies have shown the same results based on controlled lab research, this is the first study using real witnesses.

All of the lineups in the study were double-blind, meaning the police officer administering the lineup did not know the suspect’s identity and the witnesses were told that the officer did not know.

Witnesses who viewed the lineup simultaneously were more likely to mistakenly identify an innocent “filler” – 18.1 percent – than those who viewed the lineup sequentially – 12.2 percent.

For eyewitnesses who positively identified someone from the procedure, those who viewed a sequential lineup chose the suspect 69.1 percent of the time as compared to a suspect identification rate of 58.4 percent obtained for simultaneous lineups. There was no significant difference in selection of police suspects.