Abstract
The traditional six-to-ten person lineup is known to be extremely unreliable. Witnesses who choose someone when the suspect is innocent are too likely to choose that suspect. One solution is to enlarge the lineup in a manner that reduces mistaken identification far more than it lowers correct identification of the culprit. This experiment was built on past research, and it displayed to witnesses lineups consisting of sets of 12 photographs in an album, either two sets (24 photos) or seven sets (84 photos). No difference was found between witnesses for the 24-person lineup or the 84-person lineup in either their ability to identify the target whom they had seen previously, or in the number of mistaken choices of someone in lineups where the target was absent. Since the chance that the witness might mistakenly identify the suspect is far less in the 84-person lineup, lineups should consist of at least that number.
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Notes
“The requirement for added evidence to a single eyewitness testimony has long ago become an exception” (translated from the Hebrew).
Levi (1998a) reported on the average percent of identifications of witnesses, which contained totals that included witnesses who made no choice. The author returned to those studies and calculated the percent of identifications only for those witnesses who made a choice. Only such identifications are relevant for our equation.
Lineups consisting of short video-clips of lineup members have been recently legalized in England as an alternative to the actual lineup members standing in line (live lineup). Valentine and Heaton (1999) found that only 14% of mock witnesses chose the suspect in such lineups. However, video-clip lineups are only an alternative today in England. Live lineups continue to be conducted.
The two confederates were recruited from the employment agency of the Students’ Union at the Hebrew University, the only known source of reliable confederates in Jerusalem. The study had to conform to the students’ study schedules and other jobs (this study was a very minor and temporary source of income).
None of these differences is very meaningful for identification. The event–lineup interval is inconsistent for identification (Barkowitz and Brigham 1982; Chance et al. 1975; Cutler et al. 1987b; Deffenbacher et al. 1981; Krouse 1981). Differences far greater than those used in this experiment have been found to have no effect. In all events, the order of experimental conditions was randomized, such that they occurred equally at all intervals.
Confidence estimates have been crucial in previous experiments, as the MSL lineup requires them. They were included in this study to maintain comparability of method with the previous studies. Some witnesses, when asked for a confidence estimate, change their minds and refrain from choosing the person they had intended to, who is often the target. However, because of the known low relationship between confidence and accuracy in simultaneous lineups (Bothwell et al. 1987; Wells and Murray 1984) the confidence data were not analyzed.
The purpose of this block design was based on the fact that this study was a field experiment. It was impossible to guarantee that the two confederates would each recruit the same number of witnesses, or that witnesses would be equivalent to the same degree as a class of first-year psychology students over the different areas of the city where the experiment was conducted. We have also noted some variation in the event–lineup interval. Each confederate accompanied the author on different days and in different areas. The creation of blocks ensured that the effect of confederate and area and event–lineup interval would be controlled for the four experimental conditions, so that the results could not be attributed to any of these factors.
The order of the photos in a lineup is not of particular importance in large simultaneous lineups. Nonetheless, four different lineup orders were used, the order changed randomly at least at the beginning of each day of experimental sessions. The block design, of course, also eliminated any possibility that any particular lineup order would be over- or under-represented in any of the four lineup conditions, or that the order of offices visited would, in any way, affect the random allocation of witnesses to conditions.
We note that the effects of confederate and area were intentionally confounded. Two confederates were used in order to ensure some ability to generalize beyond a single one. For the same reason, four lineup orders were used. We can safely assume that different targets may give different rates of identification and that this may be true for different areas and different lineup orders.
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This research was aided by a grant from the Crime Group of the Department of Criminology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
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Levi, A.M. Research note: evidence for moving to an 84-person photo lineup. J Exp Criminol 3, 377–391 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-007-9042-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-007-9042-0