Opinion ID: 4027532
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pre-Identification Instructions

Text: The instructions police give witnesses prior to attempting to elicit an identification constitute a second important system variable. There is broad consensus that police must instruct witnesses that the suspect may not be in the lineup or array and that the witness should not feel compelled to identify anyone.83 In two meta-analyses, researchers found that providing this information to witnesses in advance significantly increased the reliability of the results in targetabsent lineups.84 In one study, the number of people that chose innocent fillers in target-absent lineups increased by forty-five percent when the lineup administrators failed to tell the subjects that they need not choose a suspect.85 82 Id. 83 State v. Henderson, 27 A.3d 872, 897 (N.J. 2011), holding modified by State v. Chen, 27 A.2d 930 (N.J. 2011). 84 See Steven E. Clark, A Re-examination of the Effects of Biased Lineup Instructions in Eyewitness Identification, 29 Law & Hum. Behav. 395, 418-20 (2005); Nancy M. Steblay, Social Influence in Eyewitness Recall: A Meta-Analytic Review of Lineup Instruction Effects, 21 Law & Hum. Behav. 283, 285-86, 294 (1997). 85 See Roy S. Malpass & Patricia G. Devine, Eyewitness Identification: Lineup Instructions and the Absence of the Offender, 66 J. Applied Psychol. 482, 485 (1981). 18 One hardly needs to engage in a protracted review of the wealth of data on this point to appreciate its implications. Without such instructions, witnesses may misidentify innocent suspects merely because they assume the suspect is present and the person misidentified bears the strongest resemblance to the actual perpetrator. Research confirms this.86 It is therefore critical that courts inform jurors of this system variable where present. Such information enables jurors to consider the impact that the absence of such instructions may have had on witness identifications. The record in Dennis’ case shows that the investigators failed to give such instructions to the witnesses. Accordingly, there is a real risk that the witnesses identified Dennis because he most closely resembled Williams’ killer. Indeed, that is a fair interpretation of this record. Upon seeing Dennis’ photo, Howard did not say “that’s him,” or “I think this is the shooter.” Instead, she tentatively told officers: “This one looks like the guy, but I can’t be sure.”87 Like Howard, Bertha and Cameron also initially responded to these arrays in a manner that strongly suggests that they selected Dennis because his photograph bore a closer resemblance to the shooter than any of the fillers. They qualified their selection of Dennis by saying: “Number 1 looks familiar but I can’t be sure”88; and “that looks like the one that was running with the gun.”89 It simply cannot be assumed that either statement was the equivalent of proclaiming: “that’s him,” or “he’s the one.”