Opinion ID: 2280356
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The eyewitness identification

Text: A witness, a school classmate of Rumfelt's, identified Bowman in 2007 as a person the witness had seen with Rumfelt shortly before her death in 1977. When talking with the police in 1977 a few days after Rumfelt's death, the witness reported that she had seen Rumfelt with a young man at approximately 10:30 p.m. on June 5, 1977, near the intersection of Brentwood Boulevard and White Avenue in the St. Louis County suburb of Brentwood. She described the young man as a white male, approximately 20 years old with shoulder-length blond hair and approximately 6-feet tall with a slender build. After the DNA match to Bowman in 2007, the police brought the witness a picture of a 1977 lineup in which Bowman appears with five other young white men. Bowman is Number 6. Initially the witness said that Number 4's hair looked like the man she had seen. She then identified Number 6, because the face jumped out at [her] for some reason and the rest of them didn't, but I thought the hair was not quite right. She also stated that his build and slim hips were what seemed correct. Her testimony at Bowman's trial, two years after her identification and 32 years after the murder, was that maybe the hair had not been blond as she had told the police in 1977; instead, she testified that it could have been a little darker and maybe it was not blond after all. Her trial testimony was that she had seen Rumfelt and the man from the front in 1977. On cross-examination, however, she admitted that if the 1977 police report stated nothing about seeing them from the front, then she actually might not have seen them from the front. The reason the witness seems to be confused can be discerned from reviewing the evidence in the record of the photo lineup. Number 4, the person the witness initially identified, is the only person in the lineup with shoulder-length hair. He is one of only two men in the lineup with blond hair, and he is the blonder of those two. Bowman, Number 6, has brown hair that goes just past his ears. Bowman is the most slender of the six, although not by much. Unfortunately for him, the fact that he was the most slender man in the lineup may have been the sole reason that the witness identified him in 2007. Eyewitness identification often is inherently questionable, especially when it is based on a brief look some 32 years in the past. [8] In one study of more than 100 innocent persons who were convicted wrongly, researchers found that more than 75 percent were victims of mistaken eyewitness identification. [9] This case shows how eyewitness testimony can be used inappropriately. The witness in this case gave a fairly generic description of the man she saw in 1977: white, 20 years old, shoulder-length blond hair, 6-feet tall and a slender build. Thirty years later, in 2007, she was shown a photo of a police lineup. She initially noted that one man's hair seemed to look like the man she remembered, but then she changed her mind and noted that another man's face stuck out in her memory. More than anything, though, the second man was very slender, so she assumed that must be the right one. The man she identified was Gregory Bowman. His hair was not exactly blond as she had described 30 years ago, but, nevertheless, his slender appearance and his face seemed vaguely familiar. [10] Two years later, testifying at Bowman's trial, the prosecutor helped her out, asking her, could [his hair] have been a little darker? She responded: It could have been a little darker. I can't be positive on the color. Eyewitnessesor any person, for that matterrarely can be positive about anything, but certainty is implausible 30 years after a brief observation. A witness may be sincere in his or her belief, but sincerity does not assure accuracy. An eyewitness's identification 30 years after the crime occurred is not useful, especially when the only other evidence available is tainted DNA evidence and when the defendant is given a sentence of death.