By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//February 7, 2014//
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Criminal
Criminal Procedure — photo arrays
Sequential photo arrays are not so inherently suggestive so that identifications based on them are inadmissible.
“Johnson has not attempted to show that all photo spreads are both unnecessary and suggestive, or that all identifications facilitated by a photo spread make it impossible for counsel to use the tools of the adversary process to explore an identification’s reliability. Indeed, some recent research has called into question the view that sequential presentation of photographs is superior to photo spreads. David G. Dobolyi & Chad S. Dodson, Eyewitness Confidence in Simultaneous and Sequential Lineups: A Criterion Shift Account for Sequential Mistaken Identification Overconfidence, 19 J. Experimental Psychology: Applied 345 (2013), gives some reasons and cites other studies. The Supreme Court of New Jersey, which has gone further than any other appellate tribunal in controlling the methods of obtaining and presenting eyewitness identifications, has declined to require sequential methods exclusively. See State v. Henderson, 208 N.J. 208, 256–58 (2011). The Supreme Court’s approach, which Perry summarizes, precludes a federal court of appeals from requiring them.”
Affirmed.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Easterbrook, J.