Eyewitness ID gets a look amid DNA exonerations

By Shannon McCaffrey, The Associated Press, December 15, 2007

The issue was driven home this week when John Jerome White walked out of Macon State Prison after serving more than 20 years behind bars for a rape DNA evidence now shows he didn't commit. The story line is becoming familiar. He's the seventh Georgian cleared by DNA evidence and the 210th nationwide.

White was picked out of a police lineup by a 74-year-old rape victim in Meriwether County. DNA tests conducted recently on hair at the scene have now pointed to another man who was in the same lineup.

"This should be our year to pass something," Aimee Maxwell, of the Georgia Innocence Project told a House committee studying the issue.

The committee's chairwoman, state Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, a Democrat from Decatur, said well-meaning police officers may send a witness unintended signals, which influence their selection.

For instance, a "good job" from the officer after the witness picks someone out of a lineup could reinforce that witness's belief that they've chosen the guilty party. A neutral officer should be called in to administer the lineup - one who doesn't know who the suspect is and could not signal any clues, Benfield said.

Legislation moving through Benfield's committee would focus mainly on training, requiring two hours of instruction on eyewitness ID issues. That's up from the 30 minutes new police officers currently receive. A separate House resolution would suggest best practices to the departments but would not mandate them.

Law enforcement officials say they welcome increased money for training officers. But they're wary of the state Legislature tinkering in police business.

"When you put a bunch of new rules in place it sometimes messes with logic," said Rick Malone, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia.

"Most respectable police departments all over Georgia are using the best practices for the most part."

But advocates of a new law say that's hard to tell. Eight-three percent of the 296 police departments that responded to a survey from the Georgia Innocence Project had no written policy in place for eyewitness Ids.

Benfield's proposed law would require all departments to put in place written policies on eyewitness identification or risk losing state funds.

Malone said prosecutors don't like a part of the bill which says departments should have officers who've completed the new training conducting lineups by 2011. If a department is unable to comply, that could create problems with admitting lineup IDs into evidence, Malone said.

And he noted that witnesses who testify for the defense - an alibi witness, for example - are not subject to the same strict scrutiny as prosecution witnesses. Malone said district attorneys have not come out with a position on Benfield's bill, but he predicted they would oppose it in its current form.

Interest in the measure is high. Famed O.J. Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck, founder of the Innocence Project, testified at one hearing. And he might come down to Atlanta to headline a fundraiser to pay for new training material for police so that the bill isn't subject to the whims of the state budget process.

Benfield said the state has already paid out several million dollars to wrongfully imprisoned former inmates.

"Georgians are paying for this whether they know it or not," she said.

And she said it was unclear whether some of the same flawed eyewitness ID techniques that landed White in prison for rape in 1980 are still in use.

John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the bar is set higher for law enforcement than ever before. Police want far more than an eyewitness identification before seeking a conviction, he said. Today's juries are also more discriminating and would want scientific evidence, like that seen every night on television crime shows.

"Nobody in law enforcement wants to arrest the wrong person," Bankhead said. "Because that means the right person is still out on the street."