State v. Henderson and the New Model Jury Charges - New Jersey ...

a-8-08.opn.html
The scientists agree. In two meta-analyses, they found that telling
witnesses in advance that the suspect may not be present in the lineup, and that
they need not make a choice, led to more reliable identifications in targetabsent
lineups. See Nancy Mehrkens Steblay, Social Influence in Eyewitness
Recall: A Meta-Analytic Review of Lineup Instruction Effects, 21 Law & Hum.
Behav. 283, 285-86, 294 (1997); Steven E. Clark, A Re-examination of the
Effects of Biased Lineup Instructions in Eyewitness Identification, 29 Law &
Hum. Behav. 395, 418-20 (2005). In one experiment, 45% more people chose
innocent fillers in target-absent lineups when administrators failed to warn that
the suspect may not be there. See Roy S. Malpass & Patricia G. Devine,
Eyewitness Identification: Lineup Instructions and the Absence of the Offender,
66 J. Applied Psychol. 482, 485 (1981).
The failure to give proper pre-lineup instructions can increase the risk of
misidentification.
3. Lineup Construction
The way that a live or photo lineup is constructed can also affect the
reliability of an identification. Properly constructed lineups test a witness’
memory and decrease the chance that a witness is simply guessing.
A number of features affect the construction of a fair lineup. First, the
Special Master found that “mistaken identifications are more likely to occur
when the suspect stands out from other members of a live or photo lineup.” See
Roy S. Malpass et al., Lineup Construction and Lineup Fairness, in 2 The
Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology: Memory for People, at 155, 156 (R.C.L.
Lindsay et al. eds., 2007). As a result, a suspect should be included in a lineup
comprised of look-alikes. The reason is simple: an array of look-alikes forces
witnesses to examine their memory. In addition, a biased lineup may inflate a
witness’ confidence in the identification because the selection process seemed
easy. See David F. Ross et al., When Accurate and Inaccurate Eyewitnesses
Look the Same: A Limitation of the ‘Pop-Out’ Effect and the 10- to 12-Second
Rule, 21 Applied Cognitive Psychol. 677, 687 (2007); Gary L. Wells & Amy L.
Bradfield, Measuring the Goodness of Lineups: Parameter Estimation,
Question Effects, and Limits to the Mock Witness Paradigm, 13 Applied
Cognitive Psychol. S27, S30 (1999).
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