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Thursday, September 01, 2011

Courts - "Reliability Of Eyewitness Testimony Under Scrutiny"

This ILB entry from August 22nd quoted a NYT article by Adam Liptak headed "34 Years Later, Supreme Court Will Revisit Eyewitness IDs."

This lengthy NYT story by Benjamin Weisner from August 24th, headed "In New Jersey, Rules Are Changed on Witness IDs," begins:

The New Jersey Supreme Court, acknowledging a “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications,” issued sweeping new rules on Wednesday making it easier for defendants to challenge such evidence in criminal cases.

The court said that whenever a defendant presents evidence that a witness’s identification of a suspect was influenced, by the police, for instance, a judge must hold a hearing to consider a broad range of issues. These could include police behavior, but also factors like lighting, the time that had elapsed since the crime or whether the victim felt stress at the time of the identification.

When such disputed evidence is admitted, the court said, the judge must give detailed explanations to jurors, even in the middle of a trial, on influences that could heighten the risk of misidentification. In the past, judges held hearings on such matters, but they were far more limited.

The decision applies only in New Jersey, but is likely to have considerable impact nationally. The state’s highest court has long been considered a trailblazer in criminal law, and New Jersey has already been a leader in establishing guidelines on how judges should handle such testimony.

Stuart J. Rabner, the court’s chief justice, wrote in a unanimous 134-page decision that the test for reliability of eyewitness testimony, as set out by the United States Supreme Court 34 years ago, should be revised. * * *

In its ruling, the court cited findings by Brandon L. Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia, who documented in a recent book, “Convicting the Innocent,” eyewitness misidentifications in 190 of the first 250 cases of DNA exoneration in the country.

Professor Garrett said the decision would provide a model for legislatures and courts around the country that “have been at a loss for what to do” and needed “a structure for how judges should handle identifications in the courtroom.”

The United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments, in November, in its first significant eyewitness identification case in 34 years. The case, Perry v. New Hampshire, is concerned with whether judges must take a hard look at all identifications arising from suggestive circumstances or only those involving official misconduct.

Joseph E. Krakora, the public defender who argued the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court, said the decision would “go a long way toward eliminating wrongful convictions based on mistaken identifications.”

The New Jersey attorney general’s office, which the state court on Wednesday credited for developing early guidelines to address identification issues, said, “The court’s ruling embodies the promulgation of additional safeguards as opposed to an overhaul of the present system.” It called the ruling “careful and balanced.”

Here is the 142-page, August 24, 2011 NJ Supreme Court decision in State v. Larry R. Henderson.

And here is a 30 minute segment from NPR's Talk of the Nation, from August 29th, titled "Reliability Of Eyewitness Testimony Under Scrutiny."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 1, 2011 08:40 AM
Posted to Courts in general