That's the title of a New York Times editorial regarding the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling on eyewitness identification. It appeared in the Saturday edition.
In a landmark decision this week, the New Jersey Supreme Court set new guidelines for how courts and juries must assess eyewitness identification of criminal suspects. The laudable decision applies only in New Jersey but could have a national impact. It provides a thorough, science-based explanation of how eyewitness evidence can become tainted and offers a judicious template for the United States Supreme Court and other states to follow.
Eyewitness identification has been a subject of hundreds of studies over the last three decades, showing that memory and perception can be highly unreliable. Of the 273 people freed from prison with DNA evidence by The Innocence Project in cases reshaping this area of law, three out of four were convicted with false identifications.
In a unanimous opinion, Chief Justice Stuart Rabner noted that misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions across the country. He wrote: “The changes outlined in this decision are significant because eyewitness identifications bear directly on guilt or innocence. At stake is the very integrity of the criminal justice system and the courts’ ability to conduct fair trials.”
And:
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a major case about eyewitness identification in November, the first on this issue since that 1977 decision. The Roberts court should pay close attention to the well-grounded decision reached by the Rabner court in New Jersey.
Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman writes, "Injustice, in plain sight."
It's a dismally familiar tale: a victim making an eyewitness identification that later turns out to be horribly mistaken. This type of mistake is universally known as the most common cause of false convictions. Yet law enforcement authorities, courts and juries continue to treat it as pure gold.
But change is on the way in New Jersey, where last week, the state Supreme Court ran out of patience with a method that puts so many innocents behind bars. It mandated new rules that will help to prevent errors while giving defendants more avenues to expose them.
The justices said that "courts must carefully consider identification evidence before it is admitted to weed out unreliable identifications" and "juries must receive thorough instructions tailored to the facts of the case to be able to evaluate the identification evidence they hear."
Like other evidence, it must be subject to careful scrutiny and challenge. The burden of disproof will still fall on the accused, but it will be easier to meet. Chances are good that, as a result, some blameless individuals will be spared.
It's the least the courts can do, and it's something the U.S. Supreme Court will get to consider this fall, hearing the first major case on the issue since 1977. Since then, the fallibility of eyewitness evidence has been confirmed by a mounting pile of data.
And:
We all know it's dangerous to believe everything we hear. The criminal justice system ought to acknowledge that the same holds for what we see.
Earlier coverage of this month's New Jersey Supreme Court ruling begins at the link.
On November 2, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Perry v. New Hampshire; earlier coverage, at the link. The SCOTUS Blog case file contains all briefing.
Related posts are in the eyewitness identification index. In the next post, more on eyewitness ID practices.
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