Opinion ID: 4528501
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eyewitnesses, Juries, and the Science.

Text: 1. Introduction. As noted in the Doolin dissent, many states, though not yet Iowa, have started to embrace the vast and extensive knowledge of 32 eyewitness science in their judicial system. See, e.g., Young v. State, 374 P.3d 395, 417–26 (Alaska 2016); State v. Guilbert, 49 A.3d 705, 720–25 (Conn. 2012); Brodes v. State, 614 S.E.2d 766, 770–71 (Ga. 2005); State v. Cabagbag, 277 P.3d 1027, 1034–39 (Haw. 2012); Commonwealth v. Gomes, 22 N.E.3d 897, 907–17 (Mass. 2015); State v. Henderson, 27 A.3d 872, 896–913 (N.J. 2011); State v. Lawson, 291 P.3d 673, 685–88 (Or. 2012) (en banc); State v. Long, 721 P.2d 483, 488–91 (Utah 1986). 7 It is virtually undisputed that over the past four decades, “serious concerns have been raised about the potential unreliability of eyewitness identification evidence.” Gary L. Wells et al., Policy and Procedure Recommendations for the Collection and Preservation of Eyewitness Identification Evidence, 44 Law & Hum. Behav. 3, 4 (2020) [hereinafter Wells et al., Policy & Procedures]. When it comes to eyewitness identifications, an “[a]ccurate eyewitness identification requires that a witness to a crime correctly sense, perceive, and remember objects and events that occurred and recall them later.” Nat’l Acad. of Scis., 8 Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification 9 45 (2014) [hereinafter Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit]. Accordingly, the accuracy of the witness’s identification depends on the limits of the witness’s “sensation, perception, and memory.” Id. Current research provides greater and more thorough insight into how these systems can 7For more states and cases embracing scientific research when evaluating eyewitness testimony see Doolin, ___ N.W.2d at ___ n.1. 8The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit society, established by an Act of Congress in 1863 charged with providing “independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology” and “committed to furthering science in America.” Mission, Nat’l Acad. of Scis., http://www.nasonline.org/aboutnas/mission/ [https://perma.cc/WK7W-K36D]. 9In preparing the report, the committee heard from numerous experts, practitioners, and stakeholders and reviewed relevant, published and unpublished, works in the relevant scientific arena. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 2. 33 misdirect, misperceive, and fail the witness. In addition to the science outlined in the Doolin dissent, there are several other points of scientific consensus that have a bearing in the case before us. 2. Perception, memory, and noise. Both vision and memory are contaminated by noise—factors that lead to uncertainty by the observer about whether a particular signal is present. Id. at 47. In vision, noise can be in the form of lighting, glares, shadows, obstructions, loud or distracting sounds, and other sources relevant and not relevant to the sensory content. Id. Specific to vision, when a person views an object, person, or event, a complex process in the form of light refraction, photoreceptors, and sensory processing occur. Id. at 50 (outlining the process and research). While some factors are inherent to the visual system of the perceiver, others are dependent upon the viewing conditions, such as time of exposure and lighting. Both work together to influence the quality and accuracy of the information gained by the observer. Id. at 50–51. Even further, the National Academy of Sciences asserted that under the typical viewing conditions associated with a typical crime, “[the] source of noise may place severe limitations on the ability of the observer to sense key pieces of information that are not present at the center of gaze.” Id. at 51. Similar to vision, memory is susceptible to noise. Encoding memory, storing memory, and remembering does not occur in a vacuum, unaffected by the outside environment. Id. at 59–60. Instead, the fidelity of our memories face compromise at various stages in the process. “Without awareness, we regularly encode events in a biased manner and subsequently forget, reconstruct, update, and distort the things we believe to be true.” Id. at 60. As such, the memory of an eyewitness is malleable and requires care in testing. Brandon L. Garrett, Eyewitness 34 Identifications and Police Practices: A Virginia Case Study, 2 Va. J. Crim. L. 1, 3 (2014). 3. Estimator variables. Factors independent of the criminal justice system are referred to estimator variables and empirical studies explain that a wide range of those variables may have a significant effect on eyewitness accuracy. Clifford S. Fishman & Anne T. McKenna, 7 Jones on Evidence § 61:10 (7th ed.), Westlaw (database updated July 2019). Estimator variables are for augmenting or discounting the credibility of witnesses. Gary L. Wells, Applied Eyewitness-Testimony Research: System Variables and Estimator Variables, 36 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 1546, 1546 (1978). I turn to the estimator variables most pertinent to the BoothHarris identification, focusing on those impacting vision and memory, and how they discount the credibility of the eyewitness. a. Perpetrator characteristics—disguise, familiarity, and own-race bias. Disguises negatively impact identification accuracy. Jamal K. Mansour et al., Impact of Disguise on Identification Decisions and Confidence with Simultaneous and Sequential Lineups, 36 Law & Hum. Behav. 513, 513–14 (2012) [hereinafter Mansour et al., Disguise and Identification] (discussing the various ways disguises can impact identification, such as imparting less identifying information, highlighting that disguises influence attention allocation by the witness and can decrease the amount of information able to be encoded). The Mansour study supported the postulation that the more disguised the target’s face was the less likely a study participant was to make an accurate lineup decision. Id. at 523. Additionally, the likelihood of erroneous identification depended not only on the degree of disguise but also on what parts of the face are disguised. Id. at 523–24. Disguises function as a type of noise 35 influencing a witness’s ability to fully take in and process information. See Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 69. Adding to the complexity of identifications, depending on the observer’s familiarity with the face, their ability to recognize the person varies. Angus F. Chapman et al., How Robust Is Familiar Face Recognition? A Repeat Detection Study of More Than 1000 Faces, Royal Soc’y Open Sci., 2, 10 (2018), https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/ rsos.170634; Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 68. In fact, people are “remarkably poor” at matching unfamiliar faces. Ahmed M. Megreya & A. Mike Burton, Unfamiliar Faces Are Not Faces: Evidence from a Matching Task, 34 Memory & Cognition 865, 865 (2006). In Wade, the Supreme Court cautioned that the identification of a stranger is “proverbially untrustworthy.” United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 228, 87 S. Ct. 1926, 1933 (1967). Cross-race identification—identification of individuals outside of one’s own racial group—is consistently worse than own-race identification. Michael P. Seng & William K. Carroll, Eyewitness Testimony: Strategies and Tactics § 2:23 (2d ed.), Westlaw (database updated Nov. 2019); Christian A. Meissner & John C. Brigham, Thirty Years of Investigating the Own-Race Bias in Memory for Faces: A Meta-Analytic Review, 7 Psychol., Pub. Pol’y, & L. 3, 3 (2001) (reviewing results of thirty years of research on own-race bias in the memory of faces); Andrew E. Taslitz, “Curing” Own Race Bias: What Cognitive Science and the Henderson Case Teach About Improving Jurors’ Ability to Identify Race-Tainted Eyewitness Error, 16 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 1049, 1052 & n.18 (2013) (discussing the extensive research regarding “own race bias” and how the effect results in eyewitnesses of one race being more likely to misidentify innocent persons when the innocent person is of another race). 36 b. Duration of exposure. Longer exposure duration—time available to view the perpetrator—is generally associated with a witness’s ability to subsequently identify the perpetrator. Gary L. Wells et al., Eyewitness Evidence: Improving Its Probative Value, 7 Psychol. Sci. Pub. Int. 45, 53– 54 (2006) [hereinafter Wells et al., Eyewitness Evidence]. Legally, exposure duration has long been thought of as a factor to be considered when evaluating eyewitness testimony. 10 Research confirms exposure’s significance, finding “relatively long exposure duration produces greater accuracy.” Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 97–98. Exposure may interact with, and affect, other variables as well. c. Stress and attention. The face of the perpetrator following a traumatic event is often said to be “burned into someone’s memory” or in making an identification, someone may claim that they’ll “never forget” the face. Contrary to the popular belief that stress heightens one’s ability to perceive and memorize, research actually suggests the opposite. Elizabeth F. Loftus, Ten Years in the Life of an Expert Witness, 10 Law & Hum. Behav. 241, 254–55 (1986) [hereinafter Loftus, Ten Years]. Instead, high stress or fear can affect eyewitness identification impacting both vision and memory. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 94; Loftus, Ten Years, 10 Law & Hum. Behav. at 254–55 (explaining the Yerkes-Dodson Law as a theoretical relationship between stress and memory finding low stress and high stress impair attention); Wise et al., Criminal Eyewitness Testimony 42 Conn. L. Rev. at 456, 505–06; Wells et al., Eyewitness 10See Manson, 432 U.S. at 108, 97 S. Ct. at 2250 (considering eyewitness testimony that focused on the distance between the officer and seller, the duration of the interaction, and lighting, ultimately noting that the officer “certainly was paying attention to [the] identity [of] the seller”); Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 200, 93 S. Ct. 375, 382 (1972) (when considering the eyewitness identification the court considered the “considerable period of time” the victim spent with her assailant and the lighting conditions under each observation). 37 Evidence, 7 Psychol. Sci. Pub. Int. at 52–53 (discussing a 2004 study on active duty military personnel who experienced high-stress interrogations with real physical confrontation and low-stress interrogations without physical confrontation and concluding the low-stress interrogations produced more accurate results). Another commonly held belief is that in stressful situations, experiences become more vivid. In highly stressful conditions, vision and memory can be affected, resulting in significant impairments in reporting key characteristics of a face. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 94. In stressful situations, an observer is faced with the choice to “select” what they are to pay attention to, and they must do so in a short window of time and without advance warning. Id. at 53. The noise surrounding the environment creates competing interest that can hijack attentional focus. Id. at 54. Attentional hijacking is particularly relevant when encountering stimuli that provoke a strong emotional response, such as fear and arousal. Id. at 55. Further, visual stimuli may trigger fear and command attention, as is the case with a weapon. Id. When a person is aware that they are perceiving a significant event, their attention is more focused, perception and their memory of the event is improved. Henry F. Fradella, Why Judges Should Admit Expert Testimony on the Unreliability of Eyewitness Testimony, 2 Fed. Cts. L. Rev. 1, 10 (2007) [hereinafter Fradella, Expert Eyewitness Testimony]. Along with significance, violence also impacts attention to the event. Id. (“Even when witnesses understand that they are watching a significant event, ‘the more violent the act, the lower the accuracy and completeness of perception and memory.’ This is a function of the negative impact that high levels of arousal and stress can produce.” (quoting Frederick Emerson Chemay, Unreliable Eyewitness Evidence: The Expert Psychologist and the 38 Defense in Criminal Cases, 42 La. L. Rev. 721, 728 (1985))). Discussing the Yerkes-Dodson Law, Fradella noted, “When people are concerned about personal safety, they tend to focus their attention on the details that most directly affect their safety, such as ‘blood, masks, weapons, and aggressive actions.’ ” Id. at 12 (quoting Curt R. Bartol & Anne M. Bartol, Psychology and Law 221 (2d ed. 1994)). In drawing their attention towards what may cause harm, they focus less on details of the crime scene. Research has shown that the presence of a weapon during a crime captures the attention of witnesses and impedes their ability to attend to other aspects of the event, such as the face of the perpetrator. Ani A. Aharonian & Brian H. Bornstein, Stress and Eyewitness Memory, in 2 Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law 770 (Brian L. Cutler ed., 2008) [hereinafter Aharonian & Bornstein, Stress and Eyewitness Memory] (“Stress effects can also be complicated by the presence of a particularly arousing, eye-catching aspect of the event, such as gore or a weapon.”); Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 93; Fradella, Expert Eyewitness Testimony, 2 Fed. Cts. L. Rev. at 12 (“The so-called weapons effect describes crime situations in which a weapon is used, and witnesses spend more time and psychic energy focusing on the weapon rather than on other aspects of the event.”); Gary L. Wells & Deah S. Quinlivan, Suggestive Eyewitness Identification Procedures and the Supreme Court’s Reliability Test in Light of Eyewitness Science: 30 Years Later, 33 Law & Hum. Behav. 1, 11 (2009) [hereinafter Wells & Quinlivan, Suggestive Eyewitness ID] (“Eyewitness experiments have consistently shown that the presence of a weapon . . . leads to a reduced ability to recognize the face of the culprit later.”). While recognizing research’s limitations 11 in how 11Researchers are ethically limited to the amount of experimental stress that can be induced in a subject. Even with highly arousing materials, participants in these 39 stress, arousal, and recall influence one another, it does not mean that we must be silent on what we do know. “[I]t is clear that, overall, high levels of stress harm eyewitness memory in more ways than they help it.” Aharonian & Bornstein, Stress and Eyewitness Memory at 770. d. Witness characteristics and condition. An eyewitness’s ability to perceive and remember may be impacted by characteristics and conditions of the witness themselves. Personal characteristics include intoxication, injury, illness, age, and fatigue. Lawson, 291 P.3d at 687; Wells et al., Eyewitness Evidence, 7 Psychol. Sci. Pub. Int. at 54 (discussing how intoxication has been shown to correlate with lower rates of correct identification and how “alcohol myopia” results in less accuracy on targetabsent conditions). Research studying recall and cognition demonstrate that cannabis intoxication affects memory. Annelies Vredeveldt et al., Effect of Cannabis on Eyewitness Memory: A Field Study, 32 Applied Cognitive Psychol. 420, 420 (2018) (discussing their study and findings of cannabis use on identification, recall, and confidence). From the studies, it appears that the effect of cannabis occurs in all stages of memory, however, more research is needed to determine what stage of memory cannabis intoxication affects the most. Id. at 421. e. Memory decay and contamination. Memory retrieval is the “process by which stored information is accessed and brought into consciousness, where it can be used to make decisions and guide actions.” Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 65. It is a complex and studies are usually not personally threatened, they are bystanders rather than victims or potential victims. These limitations likely influence stress, behavior, degree of attention, and other factors that a victim of crime must undergo and process. Aharonian & Bornstein, Stress and Eyewitness Memory at 770; see also Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 94 (speaking about weapon effect and recognizing that it may not be possible to sufficiently test the effects of stress and heightened stress in a laboratory setting due to limitations on participants). 40 dynamic system of encoding, 12 storing, 13 and remembering. 14 Id. at 59– 60. Memory declines over time, and once a memory is formed, it starts to decay. See Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 60–61; Fradella, Expert Eyewitness Testimony, 2 Fed. Cts. L. Rev. at 10; Gary L. Wells, Applied Eyewitness-Testimony Research: System Variables and Estimator Variables, 36 J. Personality & Soc. Psychol. 1546, 1552 (1978). The falsity of stable and reliable memory was addressed in 1977 by Justice Marshall. Manson, 432 U.S. at 131, 97 S. Ct. at 2261 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“[T]he fact is that the greatest memory loss occurs within hours after an event. After that, the drop off continues much more slowly.”). Today, more than forty years later, we know even more. Memory can be compromised at any stage in the process. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 60. Furthermore, quality may be affected. Once compromised, information may “never be consolidated fully” to longterm memory when exposure occurs under highly emotional conditions or with highly emotional content. Id. at 61. Once memories are stored, there is still a possibility of modification. Id. at 62 (“We forget, qualify, or distort existing memories as we acquire new perceptual experiences and encode new content and associations into memory.”). Again, the emotional nature of the event factors into the storage process. Id. at 63–64 (noting that highly arousing emotional stimuli, which tends to be more lasting than memories that are nonarousal 12“[E]ncoding refers to the process whereby perceived objects and events are initially placed into storage.” Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 60. 13“[S]torage refers to long-term retention of the information after encoding.” Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 62. 14Remembering refers to retrieval by which the encoded and stored information is brought into consciousness and is used for decision-making. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 65. 41 in stimuli, are more vivid, but are just as prone to errors and are held in higher confidence). Because of this complex system, reliability is higher when the identification is made within hours after the crime, and with any delay in time after that, reliability decreases. Wells & Quinlivan, Suggestive Eyewitness ID, 33 Law & Hum. Behav. at 13 (explaining how with the passage of time frames measured in minutes, hours, or days, more memory loss occurs—described as the “forgetting curve”); see also Wise et al., Criminal Eyewitness Testimony, 42 Conn. L. Rev. at 505 & n.340 (discussing the forgetting curve and retention interval). 4. System variables. The definition of system variables has broadened over time to include “factors under the control of the justice system that relate to (as opposed to influence) the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Wells et al., Policy & Procedures, 44 Law & Hum. Behav. at 6. System variables were discussed in great length in Doolin, ___ N.W.2d at ____. Only the system variables of concern here will be discussed. 15 15Preidentification instructions and blind administration will not be discussed. During the Booth-Harris identification, Watson was read the photographic admonition before each photo array was presented. The admonition stated, You are about to view a photographic line-up. The person who committed the crime may or may not be included in it. While looking at the photographs, keep an open mind that the individuals may not appear exactly as they did on the date of the crime. Their hairstyles, facial hair, clothing etc. may have changed. Also, photographs may not always depict the true complexion of a person, who may be lighter or darker than shown in the photo. The officer showing you the photographs has no knowledge of the incident. In the line-up process, the photograph will be shown to you one at a time and are not in any specific order. Take as much time as you need to look at each photograph. Even if you identify an individual the officer will continue to show you each photograph. The officer is not allowed to tell you whether your choice, if you make one, is a suspect in the investigation. Do not tell other witnesses that you have or have not identified anyone. Also, the two arrays were conducted under a double-blind administration since the administrator was not involved in the investigation and did not know the identity of the 42 a. Lineup construction. There is significant research and writing on the proper construction of a lineup or photo array. Guidance has been provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ), local police departments, and scientific research generally. The most common police-arranged tool for identification is the photo array. Nat’l Acad. of Scis., Identifying the Culprit at 23. Importantly, the suspect must not stand out from the fillers in the array. Third Circuit Task Force, 2019 Report of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Task Force on Eyewitness Identifications, 92 Temp. L. Rev. 1, 35 (2019) [hereinafter Third Circuit Task Force, 2019 Report]; Memorandum from Sally Q. Yates, Deputy Att’y Gen., Dep’t of Justice, to Heads of Dep’t Law Enf’t Components, All Dep’t Prosecutors (Jan. 6, 2017) [hereinafter Yates Memo], https://