Eyewitness Identification Reform Blog

Focuses on the law and policies dealing with eyewitness identification, including police procedures, the admission of eyewitness testimony in the courtroom, and the findings of memory research.

Author: Is a group blog with contributors including Ben Hiltzheimer, a public defender in Washington, D.C.

Blawg Related Categories: Criminal Justice • Public Defenders • Criminal Procedure • Trials & Litigation • Evidence • Public Defender

Recent Posts from Eyewitness Identification Reform Blog

NACDL’s Response to Ruling (Mostly) Denying Access to Illinois Lineup Data
Following yesterday’s ruling in Cook County, NACDL has offered its official response, which reads in part: “The Court has dealt a blow to the public today. We will appeal the decision and continue to demand…
NACDL Denied Access to Chicago Sham Lineup Study Data
A state court in Illinois today just denied NACDL access to the data underlying the controversial Illinois/Mecklenburg Report on police identification procedures, which means the widely denounced results remain cloaked in secrecy. NACDL has stated…
“Place your finger here” (Or: Police Lineups in Louisiana)
Naturally law enforcement officers are insisting that this wasn’t a “real” photo array, but WWLTV in Louisiana is reporting that a photo array was uncovered in a Louisiana police department which included, above the suspect’s…
Another Mis-ID Wrongful Conviction Revealed in Illinois
Dean Cage was released from prison in Chicago last night, after serving nearly 14 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Mr. Cage’s exoneration marks the 29th wrongful conviction revealed in the state…
Flaws in the ABA’s Jury Instruction on Cross-Race
At a groundbreaking two-day eye-ID litigation conference in NYC in March co-sponsored by the Eyewitness ID Reform Litigation Network, we addressed the issue of cross-race instructions, including the ABA version referred to this week at…
Lineup “Wild Cards” as Precaution Against Mis-ID
We reported on a New Zealand study last year that seeks to test the effectiveness of including a “wild card” in a police lineup, as an additional protection to cue to the witness that “none…
Another Flawed Lineup, Another Exoneration in Dallas County, and a Glimmer of Hope
Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. has spent the last 23 years in prison because he was selected from a fundamentally flawed photo lineup, after his photo was collected from a traffic offense two days after a…
“Clothing Bias”: More than Common Sense
Chief Judge Easterbrook in the 7th Circuit ruled on a case yesterday in which the central issue on appeal was whether an ID was properly admitted over a motion to suppress, where all the members…
Justice Denied Again for Troy Davis
The AP is reporting that the Georgia Supreme Court has denied Troy Davis’s latest effort to obtain a new trial. Mr. Davis’s attorneys filed a new motion, following the court’s March 17 denial of their…
Landmark Eye-ID Training Held in NYC
Misidentification is the single largest contributing factor to wrongful convictions — of the 215 DNA-based exonerations to date, over 75% involved mistaken identification. In response to this recurring travesty, on March 14 and 15, 2008,…