By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
ONE POLICE PLAZA — New York state law enforcement agencies rolled out new guidelines Wednesday for the way witnesses identify suspects in lineups and photos.
The purpose of the guidelines is to create an identification procedure as free from bias or influence as possible, according to Kate Hogan, president of the New York State District Attorneys Association.
The new protocol includes information about how to create a fair photo array and live lineup, how to invite a witness to an identification procedure and how to document the results of the identification procedure.
“Reducing the chances of misidentification and increasing the certainty of a fair trial must be among our highest priorities,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a press conference at One Police Plaza announcing the guidelines.
This is the first time the state has had a unified set of practices across all level of government and enforcement agencies for identifying criminal suspects.
“These are major steps forward in synchronizing our efforts and further our common interest in an unimpeachable criminal justice system,” Kelly said.
But the new procedure is not without its critics.
Ezekiel Edwards, the staff attorney on eyewitness identification at the Innocence Project, said the new rules don't go far enough.
“These come nowhere near to the reform that is direly needed here in New York. If you’re going to take the time to have a working group of sorts and put out a best practices manual, you really should do it right, and I don’t think it was done right here,” Edwards said.
The lawyer took issue with with the state’s suggested procedure for choosing fillers for lineups. The state says that “the fillers should be similar in appearance to the suspect in the lineup,” yet Edwards said that numerous studies have shown that, in order to minimize bias, the fillers should resemble the eyewitness' description of the perpetrator.
Edwards also said that double blind identification procedures are crucial, as research has shown that the risk of misidentification is sharply reduced if the police officer administering a photo or live lineup is not aware of who the suspect is. New York state’s guidelines suggest that double blind procedures be used, but not stringently enough in Edwards’ opinion.
“A lot of the reforms they’ve proposed are really tepid,” Edwards said. “It kind of acknowledges that there are best practices out there, but then doesn’t embrace them fully. And then it actually recommends a few things that are contradictory to the best research out there.”
Edwards said that he is hesitant to say, “nice try” or “’A’ for effort” about the new guidelines.
“I think it would have been better to have waited a little longer to get it right than to have come out with something now and get a lot of it wrong,” he said.
