eyewitness evidence

The Illinois Supreme Court has issued a ruling that could lead to more expert testimony on the unreliablity of eyewitness evidence, the Chicago Tribune's Dan Hinkel reports.

The reversal of defendant Eduardo Lerma's conviction of murder was affirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court. The trial judge was found to have abused his discretion by barring defense lawyers from calling experts about the fallibility of eyewitness evidence.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has changed the jury instructions that should be given about eyewitness evidence, which is often more fallible than people think, the Boston Globe's Travis Andersen and Martin Finucane report. While the defendant did not get his conviction overturned, the high court has issued new instructions to be used in criminal cases going forward, including "a warning that a witness’s expressed certainty may not indicate accuracy, especially when the witness did not express the same level of certainty when first making the identification. The template also includes commentary on the complexity of recalling past events, the effect of stress on eyewitness identification, the length of time that elapsed between a crime and a person being identified, and issues associated with having a witness view a suspect multiple times during identification procedures. In addition, the instructions allow jurors to consider whether witnesses were exposed to descriptions given by others, including police officers, which 'may inflate the witness’s confidence in the identification.'"

The Connecticut Supreme Court has taken up a case of a man convicted of murder in which an eyewitness identified him as the shooter even though she was 265 feet away in a fifth-floor apartment, the Associated Press reports. As part of the case, the Supreme Court is considering "whether Connecticut should join other states and abandon a balancing test created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977 and used by judges nationwide to determine whether to allow eyewitness identifications as evidence."

The balancing test is used after judges find that law enforcement was suggestive with witnesses identifying suspects, and then the judges must decide if the identifications are still admissible when weighing the eyewitnesses' certainty, the accuracy of their descriptions and other factors, the AP further reports.

There are two other cases pending before the Supreme Court on witness identification issues, the AP also reports.

Vermont is considering two pieces of legislation to seek the prevention of wrongful convictions. One bill would require blind lineups "in which the officer conducting them doesn’t know which participant is the suspect and therefore can’t influence the witness," The Rutland Herald reports. The other bill would call for taping police interogations in homicide and sexual-assault interrogations, the paper further reports.

A best practice developed by the Innocence Project to ensure accurate eyewitness identification could be running afoul of the First Amendment. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports on local law enforcement's use of witness identifiation affidavits that direct witnesses to crime not to talk to the media; these affidavits were recommended to try to avoid wrongful convictions. Seth Miller, of the Innocence Project of Florida, told the newspaper that cases that receive a lot of media coverage can taint witnesses' opinions and potentially lead to wrongful convictions. But an attorney who practices in the area of media law said having law enforcement tell witnesses not to talk to the press violates their First Amendment rights.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has this report on a judge ordering a new trial in a Pennsylvania Innocence Project case: "Calling the original trial evidence 'extremely weak' and newly uncovered evidence compelling, a Philadelphia judge has granted a new trial for two men serving life for the 1995 robbery-murder of a North Philadelphia business owner."