Eyewitness Identification: Pretrial Identification Procedures

Many criminal court cases in the United States are based exclusively upon eyewitness testimony. An eyewitness is an individual who sees or has knowledge of the commission of a crime as well as the guilty party. An eyewitness can be an innocent bystander who simply happened upon the crime, the victim of a crime, or it can be a co-conspirator who as turned state’s evidence in exchange for a lesser penalty.

In order for the police to use the testimony given by an eyewitness, the witness must be able to identify the suspect involved in the crime. There are three main ways in which eyewitnesses can identify the perpetrators of a crime: lineups, showups, and photo identification.

Eyewitness Identification: Lineups

A lineup is a group of five or six people, one of whom is the suspect involved in a crime, the others of which are police officers or decoys who closely resemble the physical features of the suspect. The eyewitness stands behind a one-way mirror and tells the prosecutor, the police and the suspect’s attorney whether or not he or she can identify the suspect correctly.

In some cases, each of the men or women in the lineup will wear something that the suspect was wearing at the time of the crime, such as a red baseball cap or a pair of sunglasses. If the suspect spoke during the crime and his or her voice is readily identifiable, the members of the lineup may be required to say a particular phrase in turn.

The lineup might also require a profile view of each of the members, meaning that they will each be asked to turn to the right or left so that the eyewitness can make an ID based on the profile view.

Lineups can be dangerous for the prosecution, because if the eyewitness identifies a decoy as the suspect, then that information can be disclosed to the jury at trial, damaging the prosecution’s case.

Eyewitness Identification: Showups

A showup identification is different from a lineup in that the eyewitness only sees the suspect, and tells the police officer whether or not it was that person they saw commit the crime.

Often, showups are performed in the field, when a suspect has been taken into police custody. For example, let’s say that a young woman saw a man leaving a convenience store just after it was robbed. He ran out of the store holding a gun and a bag of money. She takes out her cell phone and calls the police, and the suspect is detained a block away.

Another police officer may take the eyewitness for a “drive-by”. The arresting officer will stand with the handcuffed suspect next to his or her police car, and the eyewitness will drive by and tell the other officer whether this was the person she saw running out of the convenience store.

Eyewitness Identification: Photo Identification

For the most part, photo identification is used when the police do not have sufficient evidence to warrant an arrest, but the photo ID will give them probable cause. The eyewitness is brought to the police station and is asked to look at a series of mug shots (head shots) of possible suspects. The eyewitness is then asked to tell the police if he or she recognizes any of the people in the mug shots.

Usually, a group of five or six mug shots is adequate for a photo identification, but if there is more than one suspect, the eyewitness may be asked to look through several score mug shots before making an ID.