In February of two years ago, new guidelines were released to prevent or at least lower the mistakes made by eyewitnesses.
This article starts by explaining the wide prevalence of mistaken eyewitness testimony, and how this has played a major role in up to 70% of cases where DNA later exonerated the individual.
Released by February 2020 issue of Law and Human Behaviour, there were nine research-based guidelines.
I've picked out a couple which I think are of especial inportance.
Use a neutral administrator
Video-record the entire procedure
Select line-up fillers so that the suspect does not stand out
Use a neutral administrator
I was actually surprised that this wasn't already standard practice. It's been well known from medicine that the person giving a placebo should not know themselves whether what they are giving is medicine/placebo.
The subconscious cues picked up by an individual can be many, and if a neutral administrator is not used, the eyewitness may pick up on the suspect they are meant to pick. From there, all is required is our desire to conform and you have the recipe for jurisprudential disaster.
In this case I'm reminded of Hans the 'clever' horse whose owner swore that Hans could solve mathematical problems by stomping his hoof. In reality Hans was picking up on the information of the spectator.
I'm glad that eyewitness testimony may now be approaching a double-blind methodology.
Video-record the entire procedure
Video recording would at the very least ensure a fair test of the eyewitness and is a protection against arguments of unfair practice. This practice is at least starting to approach the realms of scientific methodology.
Select line-up filler so that the suspect does not stand out
This again might seem obvious, but the importance has become more evident, especially in light of psychological research. The method of picking a line-up should include the practice of not having the suspect stand out. This is an obvious point and yet would be fairly difficult in practice to avoid the bias of wanting your suspect picked.
The summary of the paper is below as well as more info on Clever Hans:
https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-171
Thank you for sharing this article Daniel. I have read it. It's useful information. 😊 I personally never liked the fact that in the past so much of our criminal justice system depended on eye witness testimony. Eye witness testimony has alot of pros and cons. But it's the most easy way to manipulate facts leading to in justice in a lot of older cases. The new guidelines to reduce the mistakes in eyewitness testimony is a defiantly a very positive step.