New Perspectives in Policing V E R I TAS

HARVARD Kennedy School

Program in Criminal Justice

Policy and Management National Institute of Justice

Executive Session on Policing and 

Public Safety

This is one in a series of papers that will be published as a result of the Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety. 

Harvard’s Executive Sessions are a convening 

of individuals of independent standing who take 

joint responsibility for rethinking and improving 

society’s responses to an issue. Members are 

selected based on their experiences, their reputation for thoughtfulness and their potential for 

helping to disseminate the work of the Session. 

In the early 1980s, an Executive Session on Policing 

helped resolve many law enforcement issues of 

the day. It produced a number of papers and 

concepts that revolutionized policing. Thirty years 

later, law enforcement has changed and NIJ and 

the Harvard Kennedy School are again collaborating to help resolve law enforcement issues of 

the day. 

Learn more about the Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety at: 

www.NIJ.gov, keywords “Executive Session 

Policing”

www.hks.harvard.edu, keywords “Executive 

Session Policing”

Policing and Wrongful Convictions

Anthony W. Batts, Maddy deLone and Darrel W. Stephens 

august 2014

Introduction

Few events subject the criminal justice system to 

as intense scrutiny from policymakers, elected 

officials, the media and the general public as the 

exoneration of a wrongfully convicted defendant. The multimillion-dollar settlement recently 

announced by New York City in the notorious 

case of the Central Park Five has once again 

brought the injustice of wrongful convictions 

and the corollary injustice of failing to convict 

the real assailant to the forefront of the national 

consciousness. (In that case, five black and Latino 

teenagers were convicted on the basis of false 

confessions of the brutal — and widely publicized —

rape of a young woman jogging in Central Park. 

All were tried as adults and sentenced to lengthy 

prison terms, then exonerated years later when 

the real perpetrator confessed to the crime — a 

confession corroborated by DNA evidence.) As 

this and other high-profile wrongful convictions 

continue to spark controversy, a dispassionate, 

thoughtful examination of the systemic causes 

of wrongful convictions and their potential solutions can benefit all components of the criminal 

justice system and the community at large. 
Cite this paper as: Batts, Anthony, Maddy deLone and Darrel Stephens, 

Policing and Wrongful Convictions. New Perspectives in Policing Bulletin. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 

2014. NCJ 246328.

2 | New Perspectives in Policing

Given their function as gatekeepers to the criminal justice system and as the initial point of 

contact with offenders, accused offenders, victims and ordinary citizens, police agencies are 

in the most advantageous position to conduct 

such an examination. This paper calls for strong 

leadership from police agencies to lead reviews of 

wrongful convictions that can be learning experiences for all components of the criminal justice 

system. The lessons learned from these reviews 

can lead to the implementation of changes in 

practice across criminal justice agencies that 

will improve justice without compromising safety.

Section I reviews what has been learned from 

studying exonerations over the past 20 years, 

including who the exonerees are, the factors that 

contribute to wrongful convictions, and the best 

practices that address these factors. Section II 

looks at the role cognitive biases play in wrongful 

convictions. Section III presents several recommendations that research shows will minimize 

the likelihood of wrongful convictions and that 

are important for police departments to adopt. 

These recommendations include best practices 

that address known contributing factors, including eyewitness identification, false confessions, 

informant testimony and evidence preservation. This section also suggests an approach for 

learning from error and viewing mistakes as 

systemwide weaknesses. Section IV provides 

suggestions for how police can cooperate and 

assist with post-conviction investigations and 

work with other stakeholders to uncover past 

errors. The conclusion explains why adopting 

these recommendations will provide both justice 

and public safety advantages: (1) they will minimize the number of innocent individuals who 

are wrongly convicted and (2) they will prevent 

police from overlooking the actual perpetrator 

early in an investigation because of misleading 

evidence that points to the wrong person, thereby 

increasing the number of perpetrators correctly 

identified in the initial stage. 

The recommendations are comprehensive, farreaching, and necessitate strong leadership from 

police agencies, both to implement and to provide the guidance required for the entire criminal 

justice community to adopt a more systemwide 

approach to learning from wrongful convictions 

and to improve the system as a whole. 

I. What Have We Learned From 

Exonerations?

After getting into a car accident with his neighbor on November 21, 1981, Henry James, then 20 

years old, went to inform his neighbor’s wife that 

her husband had been arrested. The next morning 

at 6 a.m., the neighbor’s wife was awakened by an 

intruder who raped her at knifepoint and then left 

the home. She immediately called the police and 

told them that the perpetrator was a black male 

whom she did not know. 

During a search of the community the following day, 

an officer saw James and thought he fit the description of the perpetrator. The investigator on the case 

placed James’ picture in a photo book with 75 other 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 3

black males, and the victim identified James from his 

photo. James was later placed in a live lineup with 

individuals who failed to match the description provided by the victim and was again identified by the 

victim. Biological evidence was taken from both the 

victim and James, and no matches were confirmed. 

At trial, James’ stepfather testified that James was 

sleeping in the bed beside him on the morning of the 

attack and woke up for work at 6:30 a.m. Another 

witness testified that he saw James at a gas station 

near the time the crime occurred and gave him a ride 

to work. Despite the overwhelming evidence pointing 

to his innocence, James was convicted of rape and 

sentenced to life in prison. He spent almost 30 years 

in prison before DNA evidence excluded James as the 

perpetrator and he was exonerated.

Henry James’ case is not an isolated event in the 

criminal justice system, and the hundreds of 

wrongly convicted individuals released from prison 

over the past 20 years provide indisputable proof 

that wrongful convictions can and do occur. Since 

1989, there have been over 1,300 exonerations in the 

United States — more than 300 through newly discovered DNA evidence (Innocence Project, 2014a) 

and about 1,000 additional exonerations through 

other types of evidence (National Registry of 

Exonerations, 2014). This number is not insignificant; however, what is even more important is that 

these are only the number of wrongly convicted 

persons that we know about. Because of limited available evidence, a large backlog of actual 

innocence cases, and a restricted number of individuals who can allocate sufficient time to look into 

these claims, we are discovering and examining 

only some of the wrongful convictions. As work 

progresses, it is inevitable that many more wrongful convictions will be uncovered. 

Some ask how many innocent people have been 

convicted. The truth is that we will never know, but 

academics have looked at the question in discrete 

crime categories. In a study that reviewed defendants sentenced to death for murders involving 

rape between 1982 and 1989, Risinger (2008) estimated that between 3 and 5 percent were innocent. 

Gross (2008) also found that 2.5 percent of all prisoners sentenced to death between 1973 and 1989 

were eventually exonerated. According to the 

Bureau of Justice Statistics (Carson and Golinelli, 

2013), approximately 1.57 million prisoners were 

under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities at year-end 2012. If as few as 1 

percent are innocent (a low estimate in light of the 

aforementioned studies), that would mean 15,700 

innocent men and women are being kept behind 

bars. Regardless of how many there are, preventing additional cases should be a public safety and 

justice priority.

The wrongly convicted are not a homogeneous 

group. A 2012 study at Michigan Law School and 

Northwestern Law School (Gross and Shaffer, 2012) 

reviewed 873 exonerations and found that a majority of the exonerees were men, 50 percent were black, 

38 percent were white, 11 percent were Hispanic 

and 2 percent were Native American or Asian. The 

exonerations studied span the United States, with 

large concentrations in Illinois, New York, Texas 

and California. This distribution is likely shaped 

by the uneven level of effort across states to examine wrongful convictions as well as differences 

in underlying rates of crime and convictions that 
4 | New Perspectives in Policing

might distinguish more urban states. The types 

of crimes that individuals are falsely accused of 

committing also vary. Most of the exonerations 

involve rape and murder cases, although about 20 

percent involve robberies or other crimes (Gross 

and Shaffer, 2012). 

Although exonerees are diverse in many respects 

and their individual stories need to be highlighted, we have learned much from studying the 

collection of cases as a whole. Misidentification 

by eyewitnesses, false confessions, erroneous 

scientific evidence, untrue informant testimony, 

overzealous prosecution, inadequate defense and 

sometimes intentional misconduct contribute to 

the conviction of the innocent. We believe that 

most actors in the criminal justice system do 

their jobs with integrity and have every interest in 

protecting the innocent. However, it is clear that 

inadvertent errors committed by any (and all) 

individuals in the system eventually and directly 

contribute to wrongful convictions. 

In recent years, research has led to several recommendations that can serve as checks on the 

system to prevent unnecessary miscues before 

an individual is falsely accused and to correct 

wrongs in the event they do occur. This paper 

focuses on the following questions: What policies should police departments adopt to help 

prevent wrongful convictions, and how can 

police best assist in post-conviction investigations? Specifically, we identify recommended 

procedures for eyewitness identification, recording of interrogations, informant testimony, and 

evidence storage and preservation. We then look 

at the importance of learning from error through 

an organizational accident model and testing initial assumptions in an investigation. Finally, we 

provide suggestions on how police can assist in 

post-conviction investigations.

Adopting these recommendations and developing a more rigorous process for investigations will 

provide several benefits. First, they will minimize 

the number of innocent individuals who are 

wrongly convicted. Second, as many wrongful 

conviction cases illustrate, when an individual is 

erroneously convicted of a crime, the true perpetrator often goes unpunished and commits future 

crimes (Acker, 2013). Out of the 132 actual perpetrators who were identified in the first 300 DNA 

exoneration cases, 65 had committed 137 additional violent crimes — 74 rapes, 33 murders and 

30 other violent crimes (Innocence Project, 2013). 

Moreover, it is well known that the length of time 

it takes to conduct an investigation and the probability of finding the perpetrator are inversely 

correlated: the longer the actual perpetrator goes 

undetected, the less likely it becomes he or she 

will ever be identified and apprehended. Thus, 

police will derive a public safety advantage from 

adopting these recommendations, as they will 

reduce the likelihood of being distracted from 

pursuing the real perpetrator because of misleading evidence and instead will help identify 

the actual perpetrator more quickly during the 

initial investigation. 

We acknowledge that some of these recommendations will be challenging to implement and will 

need the entire community’s support to be fully 

effective. We also acknowledge that wrongful 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 5

convictions occur as a result of systemwide errors, 

not simply mistakes by police officers. However, 

to stand by and do nothing at any level of the 

criminal justice system is a dereliction of responsibility and leadership. 

We firmly believe that police departments are 

the best advocates to catalyze this kind of change, 

and our reasoning is twofold. First, because they 

are at the front end of the criminal justice process, 

police officers are the initial point of contact in 

an investigation, and their work affects the entire 

outcome of the case. If one piece of evidence is 

contaminated, it can often prejudice and contaminate other evidence (this is known as the 

“snowball biasing effect,” which is discussed in 

more detail in section II). Second, years of study 

and research have produced highly specific, scientifically based reforms to implement at the 

police level. Best practices for other stages in the 

criminal justice system have not yet been empirically tested and determined. Thus, it is logical for 

these reforms and recommendations to be introduced to the criminal justice system at the police 

level. 

II. The Psychology Behind Cognitive 

Biases and Their Relationship to 

Wrongful Convictions

Cognitive scientists have greatly helped us understand wrongful convictions. It is now universal 

knowledge that human perception is not objective. Our perceptions are heavily influenced by 

previous experiences and events, and humans 

tend to remember the factors that fit with their 

constructed mindset more clearly than those that 

do not (a concept psychologists call “confirmatory bias”). Furthermore, scholars have shown 

that people are likely to hold fast to their own 

theories, even in the face of contradictory evidence (Simon, 2012). 

It is common for people to experience this kind 

of “belief perseverance,” and it is often difficult for 

them to realize their beliefs may be in error (Dror 

and Fraser-Mackenzie, 2009). This can happen 

at any stage of the criminal justice process —

from forensic scientists interpreting data in a 

manner consistent with law enforcement theories of guilt to prosecutors being so convinced of 

a defendant’s guilt that they neglect to focus on 

factors that contradict their theories — and it is 

clear that every individual, regardless of his or 

her level of responsibility or experience, is susceptible to this phenomenon. The likelihood of a 

wrongful conviction is further heightened by the 

volume of arrests and the burden placed on the 

criminal justice system as a whole. As it is currently constructed, the criminal justice system 

does not favor preventing or identifying wrongful 

convictions. 

Humans are constantly flooded with sensory 

information — we hear, read and see information from a variety of sources — and must process 

everything quickly and efficiently (Findley and 

Scott, 2006). To handle this overwhelming 

amount of information, a host of shortcuts (heuristics) have been developed that allow people 

to make decisions rapidly without being overwhelmed by unnecessary or redundant input.1

Although these shortcuts are generally helpful 

and effective strategies for synthesizing and 
6 | New Perspectives in Policing

processing complex information, they sometimes 

lead to faulty conclusions (Snook and Cullen, 

2009). This system of categorization and selective 

attention makes humans subject to error.

Tunnel vision, a heuristic-like model, is “the product of a variety of cognitive distortions that can 

impede accuracy in what we perceive and in how 

we interpret what we perceive” (Findley and Scott, 

2006, p. 307). Although a confluence of cognitive 

biases is involved in tunnel vision, confirmatory 

and hindsight biases play the most prominent 

roles.2 Confirmatory bias is the tendency to seek 

information and evidence that bolster existing 

expectations and hypotheses (Findley and Scott, 

2006). It is usually not driven by conscious or 

explicit errors, occurs almost automatically, and 

is most likely to appear when evidence is ambiguous. In fact, research has shown that people 

easily hold onto weak ideas and that providing 

hypothetical explanations for an idea will bolster one’s belief in its likelihood (Simon, 2012). 

Once a belief is in place, people tend to distort 

new information to validate their expectations, 

increasing the value of confirming evidence and 

labeling disconfirming evidence as insignificant 

or irrelevant.

Hindsight bias refers to the tendency to think that 

an eventual outcome was much more likely to 

occur than one originally expected (Findley and 

Scott, 2006). Memory is malleable and is greatly 

affected by subsequent perceptions and experiences. As a belief becomes more articulated 

and comprehensive (and thus more persuasive), it affects an individual’s recollection of 

events (Stubbins and Stubbins, 2009). Moreover, 

humans do not (and cannot) process information 

on a blank slate. Individuals interpret information as a product of their beliefs, experiences, 

expertise and understanding, a concept known 

as top-down processing. It is a critical function 

because humans have limited processing capacities, and top-down processing helps manage the 

huge amount of input received by the brain; however, it can also cause error because people often 

do not realize they are combining new and old 

information (Dror, 2014). This lack of awareness, 

along with a propensity to be overconfident about 

one’s beliefs, can reinforce a premature conclusion (Arkes et al., 1988; Findley and Scott, 2006). 

These cognitive biases are not limited to novices and have been widely observed in experts 

in a variety of professions, including medicine,3

journalism,4 negotiating5 and psychotherapy.6

Dror explains that there is a “paradoxical nature 

of expertise, showing that with extraordinary 

abilities come vulnerabilities and pitfalls” (Dror, 

2011, p. 184). Experts perform tasks and solve 

problems differently, which leads to high performance in most situations. To achieve such 

high performance, experts need to have wellorganized knowledge; make sense of complex, 

often ambiguous, signals and patterns; quickly 

apply automaticity (reflexive skills that experts 

can perform effortlessly); and perform challenging tasks that perplex novices (Dror, 2011). Experts 

also have highly trained information processing 

mechanisms, with an acute ability to select the 

most pertinent information, group steps together 

into a single entity, and apply automaticity. 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 7

Ironically, these linchpins of expertise can lead 

to a lack of flexibility and to error. “Chunking” 

information makes the components less available, if not inaccessible altogether, and fine-tuned 

selective attention also leads to the filtering of 

potentially important information. For example, 

“chess experts are indeed better than novices in 

encoding and remembering board positions, but 

this is limited only to realistic board positions. 

Experts are no better, and are even worse than 

novices, in board positions in which constituting individual pieces are placed at random” (Dror, 

2011, p. 181). 

Thus, we can expect that experts in the criminal justice system are as susceptible as experts 

in other fields to these cognitive biases. For 

example, Dror and Hampikian (2011) found 

that a forensic scientist’s interpretation of DNA 

mixtures can be biased by knowledge of specific circumstances of a criminal case. Indeed, 

the seminal report on forensic sciences in the 

United States by the Committee on Identifying 

the Needs of Forensic Sciences Community et 

al. (2009) explicitly acknowledges the susceptibility of bias in the forensic evidence discipline. 

This fallibility plagues all the actors in the justice 

system: defense attorneys, for instance, who only 

litigate certain types of cases are prone to form 

generalizations based on previous experiences 

that hamper their ability to envision alternate 

possibilities (Rand, 2003). 

Tunnel vision is problematic in the criminal 

justice system especially because of what Dror 

(2014) refers to as the “biasing snowball effect,” 

where knowing one piece of evidence can often 

prejudice and contaminate another line of evidence. This is particularly relevant to police work 

because it is usually the first point of contact in 

the criminal justice system and all later stages 

feed off the information gathered in a police 

investigation (Findley and Scott, 2006). Although 

these cognitive biases, to a certain degree, are 

inevitable in any case investigation, research 

has shown that several best practices can help 

prevent wrongful convictions and correct wrongs. 

III. What Police Can Do To Help 

Minimize the Likelihood of a 

Wrongful Conviction

Twenty years of study have helped identify the 

leading factors that contribute to wrongful 

convictions — eyewitness misidentification, false 

confessions, untruthful informants, unvalidated 

or improper forensic science, government misconduct and ineffective legal representation. 

Research has revealed changes in practice that 

can decrease the likelihood of any one of these 

errors recurring or at least increase the likelihood 

that the error will be discovered before conviction (Committee on Identifying the Needs of 

Forensic Sciences Community et al., 2009; Drizin 

and Leo, 2004; Kassin, Bogart, and Kerner, 2012; 

Natapoff, 2006; Steblay et al., 2001; Wells et al., 

1998; Wogalter, Marwitz, and Leonard, 1992). 

We call on police leaders to (1) adopt best practices that can reduce wrongful convictions and 

lead to the correct perpetrator, (2) embrace a 

culture of learning from error that works to 

understand when errors or near misses occur, and

(3) develop investigative practices that continuously 
8 | New Perspectives in Policing

challenge the unwarranted assumption —

 shared by witnesses, investigators and attorneys 

— that we are always right. 

A. Adopt Best Practices Known To Reduce the 

Likelihood of Wrongful Convictions

In the sections below, we review specific steps 

in the justice process and present several best 

practices in the following areas: eyewitness 

identification, interrogation, informant procedures, and evidence preservation and storage. 

These recommendations will reduce errors and 

improve the administration of justice. 

1. Eyewitness Identification

Eyewitness misidentification played a role in 

almost 40 percent of the 1,281 overturned convictions reported by the National Registry of 

Exonerations (2014) and close to 75 percent of 

the first 250 DNA exonerations (Garrett, 2011). 

Research illustrates that it continues to be a major 

factor, contributing to 73 percent of the current 

312 DNA exonerations (Innocence Project, 2014b). 

Since the landmark National Institute of Justice 

study on eyewitness identification was published 

almost 15 years ago (Technical Working Group for 

Eyewitness Evidence, 1999), scholars have conducted extensive additional research showing 

that eyewitnesses are prone to error. Two main 

categories of factors interfere with eyewitness 

accuracy — estimator variables (e.g., lighting, 

presence of a weapon, degree of stress) and system variables (the ways that police retrieve and 

record witness memory). Although police officers 

have no control over estimator variables, several 

best practices have been developed to manage 

system variables (Innocence Project, 2014b). 

First, numerous studies show that when lineup 

administrators know who the suspect is, they 

can have a strong biasing effect on eyewitnesses. 

In a study comparing the effects of blind and 

non-blind administration, Canter, Hammond, 

and Youngs (2013) found that the target photo 

was selected more than twice as often with an 

“informed administrator” than with a “blind 

administrator.” Thus, implementing blind 

administration — when the officer administering 

the lineup is unaware of who the suspect is — can 

significantly reduce the likelihood of misidentification (Haw and Fisher, 2004; Phillips et al., 1999; 

Wells et al., 1998). 

Second, eyewitnesses tend to use relative judgments in making identifications, where they 

compare lineup members to each other to decide 

which one most resembles their memory of the 

perpetrator. The major issue with relative judgments in eyewitness lineups is that one lineup 

member will always look more like the perpetrator 

than other members. This is of particular concern when the actual perpetrator is not included 

in the lineup, making the innocent suspect who 

most looks like the perpetrator more susceptible 

to selection (Wells, Steblay, and Dysart, 2011). 

Sequential rather than simultaneous presentation of lineups decreases the rate at which 

innocent people are selected by limiting the comparison of photos that eyewitnesses are prone to 

make in a simultaneous presentation (Cutler and 

Penrod, 1988; Lindsay and Wells, 1985; Steblay et 

al., 2001). Organizations such as the Innocence 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 9

Project (2014d) and the International Association 

of Chiefs of Police (IACP) (2010) also support the 

use of blind-sequential lineup presentations. 

Bradfield, Wells, and Olson (2002) show that eyewitnesses who were given confirmatory feedback 

on their identification inflated their recollections 

of the confidence they felt in their selections. This 

study and others support the best practice that 

eyewitnesses provide a statement on their level 

of confidence in the identification at the time 

the identification is made, when the possibility 

of feedback and memory alterations is minimal. 

Furthermore, research indicates that having witnesses instantly answer questions about certainty 

has a partially prophylactic effect against future 

feedback effects (Quinlivan et al., 2009), and in 

the event that feedback does occur, the statements can be used to temper jurors’ evaluations 

of the eyewitness identification (Bradfield and 

McQuiston, 2004). 

Lineup composition is crucial for a fair lineup, as 

a biased lineup can cause an innocent suspect 

to stand out and thus increase the likelihood of 

a false identification (Wogalter, Marwitz, and 

Leonard, 1992). In a fair lineup, mock witnesses’ 

selections should be evenly distributed over all 

of the lineup members, which is consistent with 

random chance. If mock witnesses focus on or 

choose one lineup member above others, this 

demonstrates a biased lineup. In one study that 

used archival records to examine the fairness of 

live lineups conducted in actual cases, researchers found that mock witnesses, who had never 

seen the suspect before and had only heard a 

description, identified the suspect 2.2 times more 

often than expected by chance. If lineups were 

fair, the mock witnesses would have identified the 

suspect 11 percent of the time (evenly distributed 

among the nine individuals in the lineup), yet 

the suspect was identified 25 percent of the time 

(Valentine and Heaton, 1999). 

To minimize biased lineups, fillers should be 

selected based on a two-part procedure. First, 

filler picks should match critical details of the 

witness’s description of the perpetrator. This 

will lessen the chance that an innocent suspect 

looks most like the perpetrator. Second, filler 

picks should not look too different from the suspect to ensure that the suspect does not stand 

out (Koehnken, Malpass, and Wogalter, 1996). 

Finally, all lineups should be properly recorded 

and documented to allow for review of the lineup 

in the event that it was improperly conducted 

(International Association of Chiefs of Police, 

2010; Innocence Project, 2014b). 

According to public information requests in nine 

states conducted by the Innocence Project and 

affiliated entities, many jurisdictions have implemented blind-sequential procedures voluntarily 

through the adoption of an official policy. These 

jurisdictions include but are not limited to Santa 

Clara, California; Monterey, California; Denver, 

Colorado; Palm Beach County, Florida; Baltimore, 

Maryland; Hyattsville, Maryland; Norwood, 

Massachusetts; Hennepin County, Minnesota; 

Colstrip, Montana; North Charleston, South 

Carolina; and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Six states 

have also adopted both blind and sequential 

administration, and five other states have recommended the double-blind reform package and 
10 | New Perspectives in Policing

incorporated it into police training (Innocence 

Project, 2014d). Yet many departments are reluctant to adopt these procedures. That reluctance 

seems to stem largely from three concerns. First, 

many investigators question the research that 

indicates there are fewer misidentifications using 

a sequential lineup presentation. They argue that 

the research has been conducted in a laboratory environment and may not apply in the field. 

Second, they contend that blind administration 

is an operational problem because it is difficult 

to find someone who can act as a blind administrator. Third, investigators feel that turning over 

a victim or witness to someone he or she is not 

familiar with would hinder the lineup process. 

The first of these concerns has been addressed 

both in the laboratory and in a recent randomized trial field study in four sites that showed 

sequential lineups with blind administration 

produced significantly fewer filler picks than the 

blind simultaneous procedure (11 and 18 percent, 

respectively). This reduction in filler picks was 

not associated with a reduction in suspect picks, 

with approximately one-quarter of witnesses 

choosing a suspect using both procedures (Wells, 

Steblay, and Dysart, in press). This peer-reviewed 

study, the only one of its kind, reinforced in the 

field what has been known in the laboratory for 

30 years and has contributed to the increase in 

police agencies adopting the recommended policies. The experiences of departments that have 

implemented these practices also illustrate that 

the perceived obstacles are not serious areas 

of concern (Police Executive Research Forum, 

2013). The IACP developed a model policy, along 

with a training key, to guide police departments 

in implementing these practices (International 

Association of Chiefs of Police, 2010).7 Many 

departments have adopted policies to address 

the concerns about staffing and witness/victim 

comfort. Despite initial resistance, experience 

has proved that implementation is simpler than 

expected, and the jurisdictions that adopt them 

prefer the new procedures.

2. Interrogation Procedures 

Another major contributing cause of wrongful convictions is false confessions — innocent 

defendants made outright confessions or pled 

guilty in almost 16 percent of exoneration cases, 

Folder Shuffle Method

Many police departments do not have enough 

independent administrators available to perform 

the number of blind lineups that are needed. This 

problem can be remedied by following folder shuffle 

procedures:

1. Place the suspect’s and five filler photos in 

individual folders. 

2. Shuffle the folders before giving them to the 

witness and place four empty folders at the 

bottom of the pile (you do not want the witness 

to know when he/she is viewing the last photo, 

because witnesses may feel an increased need 

to make an identification if they believe they are 

viewing the last photo).

3. The officer administrating the array should 

position himself or herself so he or she cannot 

see inside the folders as the witness is reviewing 

them. 

This method will achieve the same effect as having 

an independent blind administrator (International 

Association of Chiefs of Police, 2010; Office of the 

Attorney General, State of Wisconsin, 2010). 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 11

and innocent individuals incriminated themselves in some way in more than 25 percent of 

DNA exonerations (Gross and Shaffer, 2012; 

Innocence Project, 2014c). Innocent people confess for myriad reasons, among them duress, 

ignorance of the law, and intoxication. Juveniles 

and people with mental disabilities are considered vulnerable populations at an increased risk 

for falsely confessing. Drizin and Leo (2004) analyzed 125 cases of proven false confessions and 

found that 63 percent were younger than age 25 

and 32 percent were younger than age 18. They 

also found that 22 percent were mentally challenged and 10 percent had a diagnosed mental 

illness. Although these populations may be the 

most vulnerable, the exonerations include many 

fully competent adults who confessed to crimes 

they did not commit. 

Several core principles of psychology play a role 

in false confessions (Kassin, Bogart, and Kerner, 

2012; Meissner and Russano, 2003). First, “people make choices that they think will maximize 

their well-being given the constraints they face, 

making the best of the situation they are in,” 

(Kassin et al., 2010, p. 15). Second, people tend to 

view immediate outcomes more favorably than 

delayed outcomes and are impulsive in their 

decision-making (Kassin et al., 2010). Malleability 

of memory and the ability to manipulate an 

individual’s perception of the past, which were 

discussed in section II, are also heightened during stressful situations (Drizin and Leo, 2004; 

Kassin and Kiechel, 1996; Leo and Ofshe, 1998). 

Ironically, innocence itself may put innocent 

individuals at risk of falsely confessing. Research 

suggests that people who are falsely accused tend 

to believe that justice will prevail and that their 

innocence will become transparent to investigators. As a result, they often cooperate fully with 

police, waiving their rights to silence and lawyers 

and speaking freely to defend themselves. In a 

study of mock criminals and innocent individuals, the mock criminals varied the amount they 

disclosed, but the innocent individuals were 

uniformly forthcoming (Kassin, 2005). Another 

study compared the willingness of innocent 

individuals to waive their rights and submit to 

questioning to that of guilty individuals; the 

rates were 81 percent and 36 percent, respectively 

(Kassin and Norwick, 2004). 

Finally, because the decision to interrogate a 

suspect is based on a preliminary suspicion of 

that individual, there can be an inherent bias 

during interrogations (known as “investigator bias”). This can lead to a propensity to view 

suspects as guilty and can inflate officers’ confidence in their ability to detect deceit (Simon, 

2012). For example, research shows that people 

who were led to believe that a truthful individual 

was being untruthful overestimated the amount 

of gaze aversion (an action typically associated 

with lying) the individual had displayed during 

the interrogation (Levine, Asad, and Park, 2006). 

Kassin and colleagues (2007) surveyed 631 police 

investigators, who estimated they were accurate 

at truth and lie detection 77 percent of the time 

although the average accuracy rate is actually 

about 54 percent, which is essentially no better 

than a random guess. 
12 | New Perspectives in Policing

Recording custodial interrogations, from the 

reading of Miranda rights through the conclusion 

of the interrogation, is one way to reduce the likelihood that a false confession will go undetected 

through a criminal prosecution (Drizin and Leo, 

2004; Kassin, Bogart, and Kerner, 2012). If there is 

an accurate record of exactly who said what first, 

a review of the interrogation will confirm whether 

the suspect provided details that “only the true 

perpetrator could know” or whether the interrogator inadvertently introduced those facts. It 

creates a record of all the inconsistent statements 

made that support the claim that the confession 

was not reliable. A recording also has the benefit 

of preventing false claims of torture or undue 

coercion. Seventeen states, including Arkansas, 

Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, 

and Oregon; the District of Columbia; and almost 

1,000 law enforcement agencies, many in large 

cities such as Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, 

Philadelphia, San Francisco, and St. Petersburg, 

now record the entire custodial interrogation in at 

least some categories of felonies (Sullivan, 2014). 

National organizations, including the IACP and 

the American Bar Association Criminal Justice 

Section, have endorsed the practice. 

Police agencies face challenges in implementing video recording of interrogations. They must 

find the money in tight budgets to purchase and 

install the equipment needed to implement this 

best practice and must modify interview rooms 

to obtain clear images and sound. Policies and 

procedures must be developed, and officers must 

be trained. The greatest challenge is introducing 

a change that some will resist; however, with 

Interview With William Brooks 

William G. Brooks III, Chief of the Norwood, 

Massachusetts, Police Department, is a staunch 

advocate for eyewitness identification best practices and recording of interrogations. He says about 

both policies: “As resistant as I was to them at first, 

it was really a breeze. It just works. It’s one of the 

best things we’ve done.” 

The Norwood Police Department began recording 

interrogations in 2004. Although there was initial 

concern about individuals being unwilling to talk, 

the department has seen no additional resistance 

from individuals now that they are being recorded. 

Chief Brooks advises discreetly setting up a camera 

with a hidden microphone so there is not a constant 

reminder of the recording. He believes the benefits 

of recording interrogations are significant, including 

a reduction in the time detectives spend testifying 

about the interview procedures and no longer needing to explain to the jury why police did not record 

the interrogation. 

The Norwood Police Department implemented the 

recommended eyewitness identification practices 

after Chief Brooks attended a training hosted by 

the District Attorney’s office that promoted the 

practices. The adoption of the practices was seamless and the advantages were immense, especially 

at trial. Chief Brooks has noticed that because 

the lineup procedures now have a scientific basis, 

detectives are more professional on the witness 

stand, and there has been little cross-examination 

about the procedures. 

According to Chief Brooks, the key to successfully 

adopting these best practices is the training. “From 

the police end, there’s so much to know and if you 

don’t tell the police the reason behind it, they won’t 

get it and they resist it. In the departments that have 

the policy and have done the training, there is really 

no resistance... . Everywhere I go, they are always 

on board.”
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 13

proper training and policies, experience has 

shown that police departments willingly comply 

with and benefit from the adoption of interrogation recordings. Sullivan (2004) spoke with 238 

police agencies in 38 states and found that “virtually every officer with whom we spoke, having 

given custodial recordings a try, was enthusiastically in favor of the practice” (Sullivan, 2004, 

p. 6). Officers noted several benefits to recording, including a major decrease in the number 

of defense motions to suppress statements and 

confessions and increased capacity to focus on 

the suspect rather than taking copious notes 

during the interview, and they encountered no 

issues affecting their ability to obtain confessions 

(Sullivan, 2004). The IACP also has beneficial 

training keys to help police agencies institute 

electronic recording of custodial interrogations 

(International Association of Chiefs of Police, 

2004).

3. Informant Practices

Informants, or those who provide evidence in 

expectation of some benefit from police or prosecutors (e.g., monetary reward, release from 

prison, or leniency in their own cases), have a 

significant impact in many police investigations 

and are particularly prominent in drug investigations. The overwhelming majority of drug cases 

are made through the use of informants who are 

involved in or on the fringes of the drug trade. 

According to federal statistics, 60 percent of drug 

defendants cooperate with prosecutors in some 

way in exchange for a reduction in their sentence 

or a dismissal of charges (Natapoff, 2006). In 

these situations, informants identify the dealer 

or make the drug purchases that provide the 

evidence to support an arrest and prosecution. 

Police and prosecutors also use jailhouse informants to obtain information from suspects in 

custody to strengthen their case. 

The use of jailhouse informants also plays an 

important role in wrongful convictions. A study 

by the Center on Wrongful Convictions (2004) 

found that incentivized testimony was a leading factor in 45.9 percent of 111 capital wrongful 

convictions since the 1970s. In more than 15 percent of convictions overturned by DNA testing, 

an informant testified against the defendant at 

the original trial (Innocence Project, 2014e). 

Statements made by informants can often be the 

main piece of evidence against a defendant, and 

in some cases it is the only evidence. Although 

we understand the value to police in using informants to obtain evidence, it is apparent that 

measures should be taken to reduce the risk that 

incentivized statements may not be truthful and 

may contribute to more wrongful convictions. 

To ensure informants are managed properly, the 

IACP recommends requiring that officers complete an Initial Suitability Report for the potential 

informant. The report includes information about 

the individual’s relationship with the suspect, the 

potential informant’s possible motivations, his or 

her criminal history and the individual’s ability 

to gain information (International Association of 

Chiefs of Police, 2008). Understanding and monitoring the motivations of informants is vital to 

reducing the likelihood of a wrongful conviction. 
14 | New Perspectives in Policing

In Washington, D.C., changes were recently made 

so that the defense is now given information that 

might impeach informant testimony at least two 

weeks before trial; previously the information 

was provided only hours or days before trial (Hsu 

and Alexander, 2013). California passed legislation in 2011 requiring prosecutors to corroborate 

information and incriminating statements provided by jailhouse informants by presenting 

forensic evidence or uncompromised testimony 

(Williams, 2011). 

All case-relevant discussions with informants 

should be electronically recorded, and copies 

of the recordings should be given to the defense. 

Because most of these conversations occur in a 

custodial setting, this would not be a major burden for police departments, especially in light 

of the increased use of recording interrogations 

(Center on Wrongful Convictions, 2004). Finally, 

departments should create informant files and 

maintain detailed records of all interactions with 

their informants in a central database, and they 

should have a process for objectively evaluating 

the investigations. Keeping track of informants 

who are later determined to have offered inaccurate information can minimize the likelihood 

that law enforcement will use them again. For 

example, the FBI maintains records on informants’ value to investigations by aggregating 

their “statistical accomplishments” and assessing their credibility (Natapoff, 2009). Not only will 

this decrease the number of wrongful convictions 

due to unreliable informants, it will also benefit 

police to have an educated, data-driven understanding of how useful and trustworthy potential 

informants are when they are considering using 

one for a case. 

4. Evidence Storage and Preservation

In recent decades, it has become clear that 

evidence gathered at crime scenes can have a 

substantial impact on the determination of innocence. In a preliminary review of closed cases 

with claims of innocence over a 10-year period, 

the Innocence Project (2013) found that 32 percent were closed because evidence had been lost 

or destroyed. For example, evidence handling 

played a key role in the 1986 murder conviction 

of Paul House. Blood on House’s jeans was found 

to have matched the victim’s, but testing in 2008 

determined that the blood had actually come 

from a post-autopsy sample. House’s jeans and a 

test tube of blood had been shipped in the same 

container to the FBI for analysis, and most of the 

blood was missing from the tube when it arrived, 

suggesting it had been spilled (Balko, 2011). 

With increasingly advanced evidence-testing 

methods, the selection of items that can be used 

in the conviction or exoneration of an individual 

is growing exponentially. Thus, correct and careful evidence handling, tracking and storage are 

crucial for establishing innocence both before 

and after conviction; preservation is also key 

to post-conviction investigations.8

 Individuals 

involved in the intake, storage or disposition of 

biological evidence should consider taking online, 

in-person or other forms of guided instruction on 

evidence management. 

The National Institute of Standards and 

Technolog y Technical Working Group on 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 15

Biological Evidence Preservation (2013) recognizes the importance of biological evidence for 

all parties and at all stages in the criminal justice system, and it advocates for the long-term 

retention of evidence in several crime categories. 

Specifically, it recommends the following: 

Biological evidence should be preserved 

through, at a minimum, the period of 

incarceration in the following crime 

categories, as defined in NIBRS [National 

Incident-Based Repor t ing System 

Resource Guide], regardless of whether 

or not a plea was obtained: homicides, 

sexual assault offenses, assaults, kidnapping/abductions, and robberies 

(Technical Working Group on Biological 

Evidence Preservation, 2013, p. 5).

Police departments in jurisdictions such as Dallas 

County, Texas, which have had significantly more 

exonerations than others, have been systematically saving evidence from rapes, murders and 

other major crimes since the 1970s. It stores “tiny 

lab slides on at least a portion of biological evidence collected from all major cases over the 

years. As a result, the department has flushed 

out culprits in decades-old crimes” (Moffeit and 

Greene, 2007, p. 4). 

It is further recommended that police agencies 

develop written protocols for standardizing 

evidence packaging and tracking in property 

rooms. These policies should include packaging 

directions with digital photos and brief narrative 

descriptions that highlight the approved methods and a discussion on how various categories 

of evidence are best stored (Technical Working 

Group on Biological Evidence Preservation, 2013). 

Although there are several ways to improve the 

efficiency of tracking and retrieving evidence, the 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) Police 

Department has developed a well-organized 

cataloging system that barcodes evidence dating 

back to 1978 (Moffeit and Greene, 2007). 

Finally, departments should have clear guidelines on chain-of-custody documentation that 

identify “all persons who have had custody of 

evidence and the places where that evidence 

has been kept in chronological order from collection to destruction” (Technical Working Group 

on Biological Evidence Preservation, 2013, p. 25). 

This is especially important because failure to 

maintain proper documentation of evidence handling may result in evidence being inadmissible. 

B. Learn From Error Using an Organizational 

Accident Model

Implementing an organizational accident model 

allows police departments to review errors as 

systemwide weaknesses instead of single-cause 

mistakes. 

As noted earlier, research has identified a number 

of factors that contribute to wrongful convictions 

and the best practices that can be implemented 

to address these contributing factors. Although 

these policies are certain to help reduce wrongful convictions that might have involved 

eyewitnesses, false confessions, poor evidence 

preservation or jailhouse informants, they will 

not address the systemwide failures that contribute to wrongful convictions. 
16 | New Perspectives in Policing

Currently, many police departments review 

wrongful convictions through a single-cause, 

one-component review, where the focus of the 

search is to pinpoint the one mistake or “bad 

apple” that caused the wrongful conviction. The 

underlying assumption in these assessments 

is that once the lying informant, eyewitness 

misidentification or unethical prosecutor is 

uncovered and remedied, the system will once 

again be efficient. However, this type of review 

is flawed because it overlooks the multitude of 

less obvious errors that should be corrected to 

enhance the accuracy of the system as a whole 

(Doyle, 2012; Shane, 2013). What is needed is an 

approach to reviewing wrongful convictions (and 

near misses) that not only focuses on the major 

factors but also looks at the fundamental etiology 

of wrongful convictions. 

We recommend that police agencies develop a 

review system that avoids simply blaming individuals and concentrates on understanding the 

organizational factors that contribute to errors. 

This type of organizational accident model does 

not ask why the individual erred but asks what 

structural issues played a role in the individual’s 

actions that triggered the error. Accidents are 

assumed to take place because of one or more 

levels of organizational failure: organizational 

influences, unsafe supervision, preconditions 

for unsafe acts and the unsafe acts themselves. 

The model accepts that mistakes are inevitable 

in a human-dominated system and that no single error independently is sufficient to cause a 

significant accident. It shifts the focus to how 

inherent system weaknesses converge with 

these individual mistakes to lead to tragedies 

(Doyle, 2012; Shane, 2013). This type of review is a

forward-looking tool that considers these accidents as a culmination of errors at several stages 

and treats mistakes as learning opportunities. 

There are obstacles to creating and implementing 

an organizational accident model for the review 

of wrongful convictions and near misses. One 

formidable obstacle is that the criminal justice 

system is not a true system — it is an interconnected group of individual entities that come 

together to play specific roles in holding individuals accountable for violations of the law. Winning, 

rather than a search for truth and justice, has 

become a leading objective. Bringing police, 

prosecutors, defenders and the courts together to 

determine what went wrong is a challenge. One 

must overcome the tendency to assign blame even 

though it is clear that the responsibility for wrongful convictions cuts across all parts of the system. 

Civil liability is also a significant obstacle —

how can all of the stakeholders come together in 

a culture where accountability for errors often 

comes in the form of institutional or individual 

financial judgments? 

Review mechanisms have been established that 

may help answer that question and serve as a 

guide to developing a process for wrongful conviction and near-miss assessment. Child fatality 

review teams exist in all 50 states and the District 

of Columbia (Langstaff and Sleeper, 2001), and 

elder abuse and domestic violence fatality review 

teams have also been established in many communities across America (National Domestic 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 17

Violence Fatality Review Initiative, 2013; Stigal, 

2005). These teams bring together police (leadership and labor), prosecutors, social services, 

mental health workers, coroners, public health 

officials and others to examine fatalities. They 

search for the causes of these deaths and aim to 

implement policies or procedures that will help 

prevent similar deaths in the future. Their success 

depends on creating an environment where there 

can be honest dialogue about system flaws and 

approaches for fixing them. The discussions are 

confidential, and members are prohibited from 

disclosing them outside the team (Stigal, 2005). 

Some states, such as California, have laws that 

support this confidentiality and protect oral and 

written communications from discovery (Stigal, 

2005). 

The field of health care also illustrates opportunities for learning from error and has developed a 

comprehensive approach to reviewing mistakes. 

In one examination of a wrong-patient surgery, 

the review team found at least 17 errors, ranging 

from the patient’s face being draped so physicians could not see it to poor communication 

between doctors and nurses. Most critically, the 

review team concluded that no single error could 

have caused the wrong-patient surgery. Instead, 

the combination of all of these mistakes resulted 

in this major error (Chassin and Becher, 2002). 

Medical practitioners realized that viewing error 

as a failure of character was unproductive and 

left latent system weaknesses uninvestigated. 

Instead, focusing on the error review in a nonblaming, systems-oriented way would lead to 

much more useful information. 

We believe that this model does not need to 

be implemented immediately at all levels of 

the criminal justice system and that police 

departments are in the best position to be the 

forerunners for this kind of change. Through 

police leadership, all stakeholders (e.g., defenders, 

prosecutors, forensic scientists) will eventually 

become involved, and a new element of professionalism within the criminal justice system will 

be created. 

Although hurdles must be overcome to establish 

a systematic process for wrongful conviction 

review, it is essential that it be done. As Shane 

(2013, p. 3) states:

In reality, even the best decisions are 

constrained by organizational policies, 

personal preparedness and situational 

circumstances beyond the individual’s 

control. So, punishing the individual has 

limited impact; there is symbolic value, 

but that does little to correct the underlying problem, shape a culture of safety 

and develop organizational learning and 

personal mastery.

Thus, while we implore police leaders to adopt the 

best practices described in section III.A of this 

paper, we also call on these leaders to help move 

the system toward one that continuously learns 

from error and seeks truth, better outcomes and 

continual system improvement. 

C. Test Initial Assumptions

Using the knowledge acquired from wrongful 

conviction and near-miss reviews, police can 
18 | New Perspectives in Policing

also develop new ways to test initial assumptions 

about a case or a suspect. As we have explained, 

belief perseverance is difficult to overcome. It is 

exacerbated by the immense institutional pressures police experience to close cases. Thus, 

creating checklists from scientifically based 

research, previous experiences, and investigations that serve as opportunities to question 

initial reactions can help direct police away 

from an innocent individual and toward the real 

perpetrator. Moreover, they provide a concrete 

record of how an officer handled a case and can 

be used as an example of good practice or to 

uncover errors as the case progresses. 

Dating back to the 1930s, the use of checklists has 

proven helpful in avoiding pitfalls for business 

and industry in general. As technology improved, 

the amount of data and information available to 

practitioners in all areas grew, and managing and 

digesting it became more difficult. Checklists 

were developed to help practitioners perform 

a long list of steps reproducibly and to manage 

complex tasks. It is human nature to overlook 

some steps in the multitude of things we do daily. 

Gawande (2009) explains that in some of the most 

complex professions, such as medicine and aviation, checklists are essential, helping in memory 

recall and defining, at a minimum, the necessary 

steps needed to understand an overall process. 

Departments and offices within the criminal 

justice arena are already using checklists to reinforce best practices because they are low cost, do 

not require a lot of time and serve very important 

purposes. Checklists are very useful in prosecutors’ offices: they remind prosecutors of the steps 

they should take to avoid error, they provide 

supervisors with a record of how an employee has 

handled a case to date, and they increase the likelihood that prosecutors are basing their charging 

decisions on all available evidence. For example: 

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office 

has assembled a number of checklists 

designed to assist its prosecutors in 

investigating and prosecuting their cases. 

These checklists did not, for the most part, 

create new practices. Instead, they represented the formalization of existing office 

policies and practices. However, even 

though the checklists did not contain 

new policies, the Manhattan DA’s Office 

wanted to emphasize the importance 

of distilling existing office policies into 

checklists (Center on the Administration 

of Criminal Law’s Conviction Integrity 

Project, 2011, p. 18). 

Checklists can be tailored to promote compliance in a variety of areas. The Manhattan District 

Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit has developed a questionnaire to help prosecutors identify 

potential areas in cases where exculpatory material might exist that needs to be disclosed. The 

questionnaire is not a formal checklist — a prosecutor does not need to literally check a box for 

each type of evidence that does or does not exist. 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 19

Instead, the questionnaire provides flexibility 

to prosecutors in assessing their cases while 

still serving the purpose of a standard checklist 

(Center on the Administration of Criminal Law’s 

Conviction Integrity Project, 2011). 

The police have a long history of using checklists in a number of areas. Officer field training 

Case Example: Douglas Warney 

On January 3, 1996, the police discovered William Beason’s body in his bedroom. Beason had been stabbed to death 

in the neck and chest. They also found a bloodstained knife, towel and tissues in the bathroom hamper. 

On the same day the media publicized the details of the murder, Douglas Warney called the police to discuss information he claimed to have about the homicide. Warney is cognitively impaired and has a recorded IQ of 68. He knew the 

victim casually, having done housework for him several times in prior years. Warney was taken in for an interrogation, 

where police obtained a signed confession stating that he had killed Beason alone. 

Before the trial, biological evidence from the crime scene was analyzed. Testing on the towel and tissue found blood 

that did not come from either Warney or the victim. Nevertheless, in February 1997, Warney was convicted of seconddegree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. In 2004, the Innocence Project accepted Warney’s case, 

and DNA testing of evidence was issued. The results were entered into the New York State DNA databank of convicted 

felons, and the profile from the evidence matched an inmate who was already serving a life sentence for murder. 

Warney’s conviction was vacated in 2006, and he was released from prison. 

Mistakes occurred at all levels of the criminal justice process, but we will limit our review to police errors. First, 

police became focused on Warney as a primary suspect too quickly because of his suggestion that he had information about the murder. Warney had made similar calls to the police before that had not been credible, and he had 

recently been admitted to a psychiatric ward. Investigators should have asked questions that would have shed light 

on all possibilities as to why Warney called the police. These questions might have revolved around whether police 

had exhausted all other possible explanations for Warney’s behavior and whether Warney had any other motives for 

calling about the crime. 

Second, Warney’s account of the crime changed several times, and his alleged confession was full of inconsistencies. Furthermore, it is important that the mental state and capabilities of an individual be considered when deciding 

if and how to interrogate someone, and research indicates that an interrogation that lasts more than four hours 

can increase the risk of an individual falsely confessing (Kassin et al., 2010). Warney was interrogated for 12 hours. 

Detectives would have benefitted from considering whether there were any factors that put Warney at an increased 

risk of falsely confessing.

Finally, when testing on the towel and tissue showed that the blood could not have come from either Warney or the 

victim, little was done to look into alternative explanations. After Warney was arrested, police did not explore any other 

possible suspects even though there were individuals who could have been questioned. If detectives had investigated 

other potential leads, this may have helped offset the effects of tunnel vision and the police’s sole focus on Warney 

after his alleged confession (Innocence Project, 2007).

programs designed in the early 1960s used a 

daily checklist to evaluate performance and to 

ensure trainees practiced skills important to their 

success (Kaminsky, 2000). Police have also used 

checklists in domestic violence, homicide, assault 

and property crime investigations (Gerberth, 

2013; Governor’s Commission on Domestic and 

Sexual Violence, 2012; Greenberg, 2010; Sadusky, 
20 | New Perspectives in Policing

2010). Sidebottom, Tilley, and Eck (2012) believe 

checklists can play an important role in problemoriented policing:

We see checklists as supplementing the 

numerous strategies already in place to 

help manage the complexity involved in 

doing problem-oriented policing, not to 

be worked through slavishly but to act as 

an aide-memoir to ensure that actions 

that research evidence suggests is important are considered and not forgotten.

Police departments could also profit greatly from 

the use of checklists in areas such as eyewitness 

identification, interrogations, evidence collection 

and laboratory controls. Although police agencies 

are encouraged to improve these checklists, the 

objective is not to come up with an exhaustive list 

of questions. Doyle (2012) notes that as environments change and science advances, checklists 

will need to be continuously maintained, evaluated, monitored and perhaps replaced, and an 

overreliance on checklists can provide a false 

sense of security that everything in an investigation has been covered. 

Each case, no matter how similar it may seem to a 

previous case, is unique in some way, and boiling 

investigations down to a checklist-type system 

may engender tunnel vision. Checklists are not a 

panacea, but when properly used they minimize 

the potential for overlooking important steps in 

the investigative process.

Thus, it is critical that police officers use checklists not only as a framework for investigation but 

also as a catalyst to test their initial assumptions 

about the direction of a case or a specific suspect 

during the initial investigation. The sidebar on 

page 19 presents a case example that uses this 

strategy and offers sample questions that could 

have been asked and that may have helped law 

enforcement identify the correct perpetrator 

instead of the innocent individual.

IV. Facilitating and Assisting 

Investigations of Post-Conviction 

Claims of Innocence

Adopting these recommendations will greatly 

reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions 

and decrease the number of perpetrators who 

are free to commit additional crimes. Yet some 

wrongful convictions are bound to continue —

the burden on every individual in the criminal justice process is great, and human error is 

unavoidable. It is essential that police and prosecutors be able to question prior beliefs and be 

amenable to the possibility of error when they 

are approached by innocence organizations, 

convicted defendants or members of their departments who harbor lingering or newfound doubts 

about cases or convictions. 

Research indicates that this type of openness 

is increasing — in 2012, police or prosecutors 

initiated or cooperated in 54 percent of the 63 

exonerations, whereas in the previous 24 years 

they cooperated in only 30 percent of the cases on 

average (National Registry of Exonerations, 2014). 

Dallas County, Texas, District Attorney Craig 

Watkins established the first conviction integrity 

unit in 2007 to review and reinvestigate claims 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 21

of innocence in collaboration with innocence 

organizations and defense attorneys. Other prosecutorial offices are creating similar units. Texas 

leads the nation with 114 exonerations between 

1989 and 2012, with police or prosecutors playing 

a major role in 53 of them (National Registry of 

Exonerations, 2014). 

It is clear that police and prosecutors are becoming more engaged in these investigations, but 

exactly how they should become involved is not 

clear. What is the appropriate role for police in 

investigating claims of innocence? Should they 

establish something similar to the conviction 

integrity unit or cold case squads that focus on 

unsolved homicides and sexual assaults? Should 

they create policies to guide their actions in 

responding to information requests or when 

officers discover someone might have been 

wrongfully convicted? 

We believe that at a minimum, police agencies 

should have written policies on how to react to 

claims of innocence. Although practice varies from one jurisdiction to another, police 

are frequently the custodians of evidence or 

investigative files that may contain important 

information — in most states and many large 

cities, the crime laboratories where biological 

evidence is stored and analyzed are under police 

control. In the course of their investigations, 

police also come across information that may 

raise questions about the guilt of someone convicted of a crime. Most often, however, the police 

will become involved after receiving requests for 

information from the prosecutor or innocence 

advocates conducting the investigation. Policies 

that spell out how officers are to investigate 

claims of innocence ensure that these cases are 

handled consistently and appropriately.

Developing post-conviction units is a more ambitious undertaking, but they lead to enormous 

benefits. They not only help safeguard the public, but they can also improve the accuracy of 

the cases a department brings and can augment 

public confidence in the criminal justice system. 

Similar to cold case units where police focus 

exclusively on unsolved crimes, post-conviction 

units specialize in investigating cases where officers determine that the convicted individual may 

be innocent. Although these judgments can be 

difficult to assess, police may bring cases to light 

for a variety of reasons, including the emergence 

of new evidence, a witness coming forward, or an 

officer believing something went wrong during 

an investigation after he or she reviews a case. 

Once police have identified possible cases, it is 

important to involve advocates and counsel for 

the potentially innocent individual and to work 

with the relevant members of the community to 

ensure that the case is handled properly.

The following sidebar includes three case examples in which individual police officers and entire 

police departments were indispensable in the 

post-conviction review process. These cases demonstrate the immense benefit of police support.
22 | New Perspectives in Policing

Conclusion

Police will derive numerous benefits from adopting the recommendations that we have presented 

in this paper. First, as we have noted, the costs of 

wrongful conviction are substantial from both a 

justice and a public safety viewpoint. Every criminal justice official would argue that any rate of 

wrongful convictions is unacceptable, and that 

all reasonable measures must be taken to ensure 

that no innocent individuals are wrongly convicted. By the same token, public safety demands 

accuracy. When an innocent person is falsely 

convicted, the real perpetrator remains at large 

and can (and often does) commit future crimes. 

Reducing the likelihood of these events will 

inevitably bolster the public’s perception of law 

enforcement’s legitimacy.

Second, a department that has scientifically founded procedures in place promotes a 

systems-oriented approach to learning from 

error. Instead of searching for the one “bad apple,” 

it focuses on understanding the structural factors that contribute to errors. This strategy will 

improve investigations and encourage police 

departments to move beyond an unproductive 

culture of blame and toward a culture of continual improvement. Health care reformers realized 

a deep reservoir of useful information by focusing 

on the mistakes instead of the successes (Sparrow, 

Case Examples: Post-Conviction Review

Exoneration of LaMonte Armstrong, with assistance from Detective Michael Matthews and the Greensboro Police 

Department. LaMonte Armstrong was convicted of a 1988 murder in Greensboro, North Carolina, and was sentenced 

to life in prison. His conviction was based entirely on the testimony of an informant who then recanted. After looking 

at the case, Duke Law School’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic reached out to the Greensboro Police Department, which 

was open to listening to the concerns and revisiting the case. Greensboro Detective Michael Matthews and two law 

students reviewed the entire case file, which contained documentation that strongly suggested Armstrong’s innocence. 

Duke’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic filed a motion for a new trial, and Armstrong was soon exonerated when DNA 

evidence at the crime scene was retested and excluded him. The clinic, Assistant District Attorney Howard Neumann 

and the Greensboro Police Department were all instrumental in Armstrong’s exoneration (Duke Law News, 2012).

Exoneration of Glenn Tinney, with assistance from the Mansfield, Ohio, Police Department. Glenn Tinney confessed several times to a 1992 murder in Mansfield, Ohio; however, the multiple confessions were riddled with 

inconsistencies (he had also been diagnosed with several mental disorders, including schizophrenia, paranoia and 

depression) and the Mansfield Police Department was not convinced of his guilt. Nevertheless, he was still charged and 

convicted. In 2006, the Mansfield police brought the case to the Ohio Innocence Project. The Ohio Innocence Project 

was able to get Tinney’s guilty plea withdrawn through court hearings in which Mansfield police officers testified about 

their belief that Tinney was innocent. He was exonerated in 2013 after serving 21 years in prison (10TV.com, 2012). 

Exoneration of Jonathan Moore, with assistance from the Aurora, Illinois, Police Department. Jonathan Moore 

was convicted of a 2000 murder in Aurora, Illinois, and was sentenced to more than 50 years in prison. In April 2011, 

a confidential informant met with two Aurora detectives and said that someone other than Moore had committed the 

murder. Based on that information, police detectives pursued the new lead. Soon after, the Illinois Innocence Project 

(2012) became involved in the case; through collaboration with the police and state prosecutors, Moore’s conviction 

was vacated and he was exonerated in 2012 (Hanley, 2012). 
Policing and Wrongful Convictions | 23

2008), and we believe this opportunity transfers 

to the criminal justice system. 

Finally, we believe that these recommendations 

are exemplary opportunities for police to build 

partnerships within the criminal justice system. 

Although the criminal justice system is not a “system” in the traditional sense, it is clear that all 

stakeholders are connected and that a decision or 

action by one player will affect the others. Thus, it 

is vital for this community, including police, prosecutors, defenders, forensic scientists, judges and 

the numerous other actors, to work together and 

strive for the best quality of work.

We have proposed that the following will greatly 

aid in preventing future harms: adoption of best 

practices and procedures, knowledge of existing 

or past problems in the system, and guidelines 

on how to be most effective in post-conviction 

investigations. These are continuously evolving 

improvements that require the support of the 

entire criminal justice system along with continued research. 

We fully acknowledge that police are only one 

part of the criminal justice system; however, we 

remain steadfast in the belief that they play a 

critical role because they are at the front end of 

the system and have a major impact on the rest 

of the process. Furthermore, police departments 

are the most visible segment of the criminal justice community and often bear the brunt of social 

criticism for system errors. Police not only have 

the most to gain from adopting best practices and 

a comprehensive system of recognizing error and 

working to minimize it, but they can also be the 

best catalysts for this change throughout the 

system. 

Endnotes

1. Heuristics are problem-solving strategies that 

often, but not always, result in correct solutions. 

For example, when someone is about to cross a 

street, he or she most likely does not use complex 

mathematical or physics equations to calculate 

the distance or the speed of an oncoming car. 

Instead, when the person looks both ways and 

sees a car approaching, he or she will quickly 

form a sense of whether or not there is time to 

cross the street while the car is still a distance 

away. This use of visual cues and past experiences, 

which allows humans to make rapid judgments, 

is an example of a heuristic (Weinstein, 2002).

2. Simon (2012, pp. 36-39) describes five mechanisms of biased reasoning that are most 

applicable to law enforcement: (1) selective 

framing is the tendency to look for information 

that should be present if the hypothesis is true, 

(2) selective exposure is the tendency to selectively expose oneself to evidence that confirms 

one’s hypothesis while ignoring discordant evidence, (3) selective scrutiny is the tendency to 

apply strict standards of scrutiny to information 

that is incompatible with one’s hypothesis and lax 

standards to compatible information, (4) biased 

evaluation is the tendency to distort the evaluation of evidence based on one’s hypothesis, and 

(5) selective stopping is the tendency to cease 

inquiries after finding a sufficient amount of evidence to bolster one’s hypothesis.
24 | New Perspectives in Policing

3. A study on the influence of expertise on X-ray 

image processing demonstrated that although 

expert radiologists were better at detecting 

abnormal X-ray films, “recognition memory 

for normal X-ray films actually decreased with 

radiological experience to a chance level” (MylesWorsley, Johnston, and Simons, 1988, p. 556).

4. Donsbach (2004) studied the cognitive 

processes at work during journalists’ news 

decision-making and found they are based in 

part on the need for social validation of perceptions and the need to confirm existing beliefs. 

5. An experiment conducted with expert (those 

with more than 10 years of experience) and amateur negotiators showed that while the abilities 

of experts to make mutually beneficial trade-offs 

were better than those of amateurs, their abilities 

to recognize when they had compatible interests 

with the other party were relatively similar to 

those of amateurs (Thompson, 1990). 

6. In a study examining the use of confirmatory strategies in therapy, psychotherapists 

interviewed students to assess introversion and 

extroversion. The results showed that psychotherapists tended to sample behavioral evidence 

that would confirm their initial hypotheses when 

they chose questions from a list (Dallas and 

Baron, 1985).

7. This includes a procedure for presenting a 

photo array blindly through a folder shuffle 

method even if an independent administrator is 

not available.

8. The National Institute of Standards and 

Technolog y Technical Working Group on 

Biological Evidence Preservation recently published a manual that includes best practices in 

the handling, tracking and retention of evidence. 

The recommendations in this paper are derived 

in large part from this publication. For more 

information, refer to Technical Working Group 

on Biological Evidence Preservation (2013). The 

International Association for Property and 

Evidence also offers a wide range of materials, 

including professional standards and manuals, 

to assist law enforcement agencies in the proper 

handling of evidence. For example, Property 

and Evidence by the Book, 2nd ed., extensively 

addresses questions about property and evidence 

preservation and storage related to law enforcement (Latta and Bowers, 2011). 

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Author Note

A nt hony W. Bat ts, D.P.A., is t he Police 

Commissioner in Baltimore, Maryland, and former Chief of Police, Long Beach and Oakland, 

California. 

Maddy deLone is Executive Director of the 

Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal organization committed to exonerating the wrongfully 

convicted through the use of DNA testing and 

criminal justice system reform. 

Darrel W. Stephens is the retired Chief of the 

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. He is 

the Executive Director of the Major Cities Chiefs 

Association. 

Special thanks to Elizabeth Janszky, who provided invaluable research and drafting assistance 

with this bulletin. Without her hard work, this 

bulletin would not have been possible.
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Washington, DC 20531

Official Business

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ermit o. –91

NCJ 246328

Members of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety

Chief Edward Flynn, Milwaukee 

Police Department 

Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent, New Jersey State Police 

District Attorney George Gascón, San 

Francisco District Attorney’s Office 

Mr. Gil Kerlikowske, Director, Office of 

National Drug Control Policy 

Professor John H. Laub, Distinguished 

University Professor, Department of 

Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of 

Behavioral and Social Sciences, University 

of Maryland, and former Director of the 

National Institute of Justice

Chief Susan Manheimer, San Mateo 

Police Department 

Superintendent Garry McCarthy, Chicago 

Police Department

Professor Tracey Meares, Walton Hale 

Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale Law School 

Dr. Bernard K. Melekian, Director, Office 

of Community Oriented Policing Services 

(retired), United States Department of 

Justice

Ms. Sue Rahr, Director, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission

Commissioner Charles Ramsey,

Philadelphia Police Department

Professor Greg Ridgeway, Associate 

Professor of Criminology, University of 

Pennsylvania, and former Acting Director, 

National Institute of Justice

Professor David Sklansky, Yosef 

Osheawich Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law 

Mr. Sean Smoot, Director and Chief Legal Counsel, Police Benevolent and Protective 

Association of Illinois 

Professor Malcolm Sparrow, Professor 

of Practice of Public Management, John F. 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 

University 

Mr. Darrel Stephens, Executive Director, 

Major Cities Chiefs Association 

Mr. Christopher Stone, President, Open Society Foundations

Mr. Richard Van Houten, President, Fort 

Worth Police Officers Association

Lieutenant Paul M. Weber, Los Angeles 

Police Department

Professor David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, 

Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University; 

and Distinguished Professor, Department 

of Criminology, Law and Society, George 

Mason University

Dr. Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, 

Police Executive Research Forum

Commissioner Anthony Batts, Baltimore 

Police Department

Professor David Bayley, Distinguished Professor (Emeritus), School of Criminal 

Justice, State University of New York at 

Albany 

Professor Anthony Braga, Senior Research 

Fellow, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, John F. Kennedy School 

of Government, Harvard University; and 

Don M. Gottfredson Professor of EvidenceBased Criminology, School of Criminal 

Justice, Rutgers University

Chief Jane Castor, Tampa Police Department

Ms. Christine Cole (Facilitator), Executive Director, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, John F. Kennedy School 

of Government, Harvard University 

Commissioner Edward Davis, Boston 

Police Department (retired)

Chief Michael Davis, Director, Public Safety 

Division, Northeastern University

Mr. Ronald Davis, Director, Office of 

Community Oriented Policing Services, 

United States Department of Justice

Ms. Madeline deLone, Executive Director, 

The Innocence Project

Dr. Richard Dudley, Clinical and Forensic 

Psychiatrist

Learn more about the Executive Session at: 

www.NIJ.gov, keywords “Executive Session Policing”

www.hks.harvard.edu, keywords “Executive Session Policing”

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